This week July 11 at 8PM on The Lyric Stage we have arias, a duet, and an ensemble by Gioachinno Rossini featuring Ramon Vargas and Ceclia Bartoli.
Born in 1792, Rossini was industrious - he wrote thirty-nine operas before he was 37. This enormous output was helped along by the fact that he often happily plagiarized his own music. At least eight of his operas share overtures, including The Barber of Seville. But self-plagiarism was a common practice for composers of that era, and there was nothing dishonorable about it. Stories of composers industriously rummaging through their music to find an overture for an otherwise finished opera premiering in a few hours are actually quite charming.