A child’s introduction to opera.
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution (Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L’inutile precauzione) is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais’s comedy Le Barbier de Séville (1775), which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music. The première (under the title Almaviva, or the Futile Precaution) took place on 20 February 1816, at the Teatro Argentina, Rome. It was one of the earliest Italian operas to be performed in America and premiered at the Park Theater in New York City on 29 November 1825. Rossini’s Barber has proven to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all opere buffe; even after two hundred years, its popularity on the modern opera stage attests to that greatness.
Marvin David, narrated by Ken Nordine, Orchestra cunducted by Bill Walker.