# Favorite of these 2 Rossini comic operas



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Curious to see how the popular Barber of Seville fares next to The Italian Girl in Algiers. For this to work, we need people to vote for their favorite only based on knowledge of both opera, so at least knowledge of the synopses and having heard both musically. Here I am not looking for whether you like one and not the other but just which of the two you like more.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Still _L'italiana_. It's faster paced and funnier than _Barber_, which doesn't quite get going until the action moves inside Doc Bartolo's.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

SimonTemplar said:


> Still _L'italiana_. It's faster paced and funnier than _Barber_, which doesn't quite get going until the action moves inside Doc Bartolo's.


Excellent! I did also feel that the Barber was slow to get rolling. I have not had enough experience with the Italian Girl to pass a judgement yet on which I like better, but have ordered a DVD so I can get more familiar. Sadly there are no near as many recordings, CD or DVD, of the Italian Girl as there are of the Barber, but that my be a good thing for an OCD opera addict like me.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Florestan said:


> Excellent! I did also feel that the Barber was slow to get rolling. I have not had enough experience with the Italian Girl to pass a judgement yet on which I like better, but have ordered a DVD so I can get more familiar. Sadly there are no near as many recordings, CD or DVD, of the Italian Girl as there are of the Barber, but that my be a good thing for an OCD opera addict like me.


Have you seen the 1987 Schwetzingen production? Very funny, lively, and well sung.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

This is timely, as I'm just about to have my own personal "Rossini revival" and have gotten out my Teldec/1990's recordings of his three major comedies (the two mentioned in the poll, plus _La Cenerentola_, which is my favorite).

I like both operas mentioned above, but slightly prefer _Il barbiere di Siviglia_.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

SimonTemplar said:


> Have you seen the 1987 Schwetzingen production? Very funny, lively, and well sung.


That is the video I ordered the other day. I got a copy off Ebay for $6 shipped:


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Monday & Thursday - Barbiere
Tuesday & Friday - L'Italiana
Wednesday & Saturday - Cenerentola
On Sundays I randomly choose between Turco, Comte Ory, Viaggio & La Gazzetta


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

_L'Italiana in Algeri_ is just so perfect in so many respects and is really more fun. Plus I love the orchestration which is so colorful and precise. Plus I doubt that Rossini ever surpassed the insanity that is the finale to the first act. He might have composed a few crescendi that were the equal of what happens in that finale, but he never surpassed it. You add in the onomatopoeia and you are in another world... albeit a bizzarro world... but still another world. _ Il Barbiere_ may have Figaro's entrance aria and a couple of other hit tunes, but the pacing of Italiana is quicksilver genius. Plus, a ripe mezzo voice is perfect for the take charge character of Isabella that somehow is a slight miscalculation in _Barbiere_ where a soprano like Victoria De Los Angeles who can encompass the original tessitura is my ideal Rosina as a lighter voice seems to better suit the character.

Also it is rarely done, but the piece is enhanced when the cello version of "Per lui che adoro" is performed in Act Two as it adds a sensuous quality to the aria. The only conductor who seems to consistently prefer that option is James Levine and it was performed as such at the MET this past season. Most use the flute version which was a later revision for Milan. When the cello version is used we enter the realm of beyond perfection!

Pappataci!! Che mai sento! :lol:


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

Becca said:


> Monday & Thursday - Barbiere
> Tuesday & Friday - L'Italiana
> Wednesday & Saturday - Cenerentola
> On Sundays I randomly choose between Turco, Comte Ory, Viaggio & La Gazzetta


Sounds like a plan!  
(And happy to see _La Gazzetta_ in the mix! Though I must mention _La Pietra del Paragone_ as well with its "Ombretta sdegnosa del Missipipì aria!)


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Becca said:


> Monday & Thursday - Barbiere
> Tuesday & Friday - L'Italiana
> Wednesday & Saturday - Cenerentola
> On Sundays I randomly choose between Turco, Comte Ory, Viaggio & La Gazzetta


What about Matilde di Shabran?


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Florestan said:


> That is the video I ordered the other day. I got a copy off Ebay for $6 shipped:


Terrific - you'll enjoy it!


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

SimonTemplar said:


> What about Matilde di Shabran?


Only on the 5th Sunday of the month

Actually I know almost nothing about it.


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

SimonTemplar said:


> What about Matilde di Shabran?


Well that's technically an opera semi-seria, but if we are going to go that route I'll throw _La Gazza Ladra _into the mix!!!

Why not!

Do I hear a vote for _Semiramide_ as well?!?


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Duplicate - see below.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Becca said:


> Only on the 5th Sunday of the month
> 
> Actually I know almost nothing about it.


His late Italian comic masterpiece, using the techniques of the Neapolitan operas. Plot's about a typically feisty Rossinian heroine who tames a lesser male, here a mad misogynist.

Here's the Act II sextet:





Act I quintet:


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

You made it difficult, I go for L'italiana in Algeri though, just a inch or two.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Rossiniano said:


> Well that's technically an opera semi-seria, but if we are going to go that route I'll throw _La Gazza Ladra _into the mix!!!
> 
> Why not!
> 
> Do I hear a vote for _Semiramide_ as well?!?


Technically, yes, but it's definitely a comedy. _Gazza ladra_ is a semiseria - it's a serious opera (heroine on trial for theft, going to be executed) with a happy ending.


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

SimonTemplar said:


> His late Italian comic masterpiece, using the techniques of the Neapolitan operas. Plot's about a typically feisty Rossinian heroine who tames a lesser male, here a mad misogynist.
> 
> Here's the Act II sextet:
> 
> ...


The conclusions to both these pieces from _Matilda _are exactly what I was thinking of when I posted above that there were passages that were the equal of the _Italiana_ Act One finale! Whirlwinds of sound indeed!!!!! Thanks for posting!


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

SimonTemplar said:


> Technically, yes, but it's definitely a comedy. _Gazza ladra_ is a semiseria - it's a serious opera (heroine on trial for theft, going to be executed) with a happy ending.


Not to belabor the point, but...
It is a melodramma giocosa and that makes it a semiseria as it contains characters and situations found in both opera buffa and opera seria as is the case with _Gazza _ and _Torvaldo e Dorliska_. The seria character for example is Edoardo Lopez... an Arsace like personage who is trapped in what becomes a comical situation. Also the supposed killing of Matilda is analogous to the execution of Ninetta in _Gazza_ that never takes place. Indeed the late Rossini scholar Philip Gossett references it as a semiseria in this book _Divas and Scholars _as do others such as Herbert Weinstock.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Rossiniano said:


> Not to belabor the point, but...
> It is a melodramma giocosa and that makes it a semiseria as it contains characters and situations found in both opera buffa and opera seria as is the case with _Gazza _ and _Torvaldo e Dorliska_. The seria character for example is Edoardo Lopez... an Arsace like personage who is trapped in what becomes a comical situation. Also the supposed killing of Matilda is analogous to the execution of Ninetta in _Gazza_ that never takes place. Indeed the late Rossini scholar Philip Gossett references it as a semiseria in this book _Divas and Scholars _as do others such as Herbert Weinstock.


You're right, of course, and thanks for clarifying this! I was thinking more in terms of tone rather than the strict definition; on a spectrum of comedy to seriousness, _Matilde_ leans more towards the comic. Matilde is a cousin of Isabella in _Italiana_, a proto-feminist taming the unruly male, while the big whirling ensembles, the "Patatim!" finale, and the poet place it more with the buffo operas. The semiseria elements are almost parodic: Edoardo is, as you say, an armour-bearing contralto like Arsace, but he's also a teenager prone to crying.

I suppose it shows how broad in tone the semiseria could be - all the way from a sentimental/pathetic opera like _Gazza ladra_ (suffering heroine, suffering father, chorus of judges, &c) or a rescue opera like _Torvaldo_ to a more comic opera like _Matilde_. Of course, _Turco_ is a buffa - but also one of Rossini's darker, ironic works.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I prefer "L'Italiana".

And I also prefer the original voice for Rosina, though of course Rossini himself also prepared the opera to be sung by a soprano.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I very seldom go to the opera. When I do it's as a stand-in for my father. My favorite performance was L'italiana in Algeri and I made my mother embarrassed for laughing very loudly, especially when nobody else did...(Peter Grimes is my 2nd favorite performance.)


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## Rossiniano (Jul 28, 2017)

NickFuller said:


> You're right, of course, and thanks for clarifying this! I was thinking more in terms of tone rather than the strict definition; on a spectrum of comedy to seriousness, _Matilde_ leans more towards the comic. Matilde is a cousin of Isabella in _Italiana_, a proto-feminist taming the unruly male, while the big whirling ensembles, the "Patatim!" finale, and the poet place it more with the buffo operas. The semiseria elements are almost parodic: Edoardo is, as you say, an armour-bearing contralto like Arsace, but he's also a teenager prone to crying.
> 
> I suppose it shows how broad in tone the semiseria could be - all the way from a sentimental/pathetic opera like _Gazza ladra_ (suffering heroine, suffering father, chorus of judges, &c) or a rescue opera like _Torvaldo_ to a more comic opera like _Matilde_. Of course, _Turco_ is a buffa - but also one of Rossini's darker, ironic works.


Well, Rossini's approach to the semiseria genre was indeed to emphasize the positive elements. If Mozart hasd composed _La_ _Gazza Ladra _it most likely would have had a darker tinta similar to _Don Giovanni_ which has both comic and serious elements. Of course, regarding the character of Matilda you are right on the money comparing her to Isabella. I also like how the Poet, who Leporello-like is hungry when we first meet him, quotes Dante! The march tune in the finale to the first act is a riot as well... with the equivalent of the keystone cops going off to battle the enemy! So lots of comic elements! When one thinks of it beginning with _La Cenerentola _even Rossini's comic operas had a bit of the semiseria in them with the suffering Cenerentola's "Una volta c'era un re" and especially as revised with Alidoro's grand aria which has the feel of the seria about it, which revision was made in Rome around the time _Matilda_ was composed!


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

It's a tie vote. Come on. More voters please!


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Ok, I finally watched the video of L'italiana in Algeri and I voted for Il barbiere di Siviglia. While the Italian is a good opera, much better than the Turk in Italy, I still prefer the story and music of Barber of Seville.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

SixFootScowl said:


> Ok, I finally watched the video of L'italiana in Algeri and I voted for Il barbiere di Siviglia. While the Italian is a good opera, much better than the Turk in Italy, I still prefer the story and music of Barber of Seville.


Me too! I voted for Barber. I don't find the ending of Italiana at all convincing. They trick the Bey into staying in bed, which allows them to escape! Whilst the act one finale to Italiana is a touch of original genius, Barber's deals with similar material in a more humorous way.

N.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

The Conte said:


> Me too! I voted for Barber. I don't find the ending of Italiana at all convincing. They trick the Bey into staying in bed, which allows them to escape! Whilst the act one finale to Italiana is a touch of original genius, Barber's deals with similar material in a more humorous way.
> 
> N.


The Bey is unrealistically stupid, where as in the Barber, Bartolo seems quite clever and is more difficult to outwit.


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