IV.

Evaluation

Rossini’s operas were the last and best in the Italian opera buffa, or comic opera, style. Typically light and lively, their music is notable for its high degree of comic characterization. Rossini used the highly artistic bel canto style to fashion bright melodies, which the singers could deliver with brilliant effects and stirring expression. Although his music was written to showcase singers’ vocal abilities, he wrote out the embellishments—trills and runs—that bel canto singers had previously added on their own, thus ensuring that what they sang was his music. He abandoned the earlier practice of unaccompanied recitative (speech) in opera and added string-instrument or orchestral accompaniment to achieve a continuous musical effect. The statement “Give me a laundry-list and I’ll set it to music,” attributed to Rossini, underscores the speed and ease with which he composed.

Rossini’s reputation declined after his death, and his operas, viewed as lightweight confections, fell from fashion. During the 20th century his reputation steadily rose, and by the last decades of the century opera enthusiasts had begun to rediscover the inspired music of his serious operas, such as Tancredi and William Tell.