Max Derrickson

Rossini’s Overture to his 1823 opera, Semiramide, is one of his great Overtures and often played as a concert piece. It is also the last opera he wrote in Italy. Thereafter, Rossini left Italy and within a year moved to Paris, where he wrote several more operas before beginning his lengthy retirement there. The Overture is filled with the kind of excitement and hummable tunes that prove Rossini’s genius. …

War and love is the theme of Tancredi, the story first expressed in Greek stories, then penned by Voltaire (1760). And war in Rossini’s Italy was as ever present as he claimed of Napoleon – Tancredi was a sure-fire message for Italian audiences, and it was in this opera that Rossini put all of his talents together that make us now regard him as a genius: flowing operatic narrative, exciting music, beautifully tuneful arias, powerful choruses….