Rossini

by Gaia Servadio

Brilliant, dashing, the most sought-after composer of opera in the Romantic age, Gioacchino Rossini captured the ears and hearts of music lovers throughout Europe. From his native Italy to Paris to London, he mounted triumph after triumph—works like the grandly comic The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, and his masterpiece, William Tell. Prodigiously talented, by the age of thirty-two, in 1820, he had written thirty-nine operas and commanded universal adoration. Then he fell silent for more than forty years. The mystery that drove Rossini from the forefront of Europe's cultural stage and that curtailed an unparalleled operatic career lies at the center of Gaia Servadio's perceptive and revealing biography. With the benefit of previously unpublished letters and other new material, Servadio traces the history of Rossini—a man who exchanged ideas with Richard Wagner and in Paris salons kept company with Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, and Eugene Delacroix—from a difficult, impoverished childhood through his complicated relationships with his divas, to his battles with nervous illnesses. She sets Rossini's life, too, against the sweep of European history in an age defined and betrayed by Napoleon.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published February 27, 2003

About the author

Gaia Cecilia M. Servadio is an Italian writer. She received a bachelor's degree from London's Camberwell School of Art. Her first novel Tanto gentile e tanto onesta, aka Melinda, was published in 1967 by Feltrinelli in Italy and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK, and was a "a runaway success".

Reviews

[Sebaloo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[David Montgomery · Rating 3 out of 5]

An OK biography of an interesting composer, though marred by a loose, gossipy tone and at least a few factual errors. Servadio marshals available evidence about Rossini's life, from his impoverished childhood to the astonishing productivity of his early career, to his shocking decision to largely stop composing at the height of his powers. Along the way she explores sensitive topics like Rossini's lifelong battle with depression, and his transition from a youthful liberal to a notable conservative-cum-reactionary who palled around with Metternich and Napoleon III. (In one striking moment, Rossini is meeting with Italian friends after the failure of the 1848 Revolutions in Italy when an official from occupying Austria pays his respects. All the Italians immediately turn their backs and leave the room, a silent treatment that was common for Austrians in that tense period. Rossini, one of the greatest living Italians, was upset — at his friends, whose departure he took as a personal affront.)

I do think this book could have done with slightly more in-depth analysis of Rossini's music — some of his monumental works came and went in little more than a paragraph. Servadio was at her best covering Rossini's social and psychological life, and at her weakest relating him to the big events going on in Europe at the time (some of which she mis-characterizes).

[Ellen Marchessault · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt more like something I would have/could have read in college. It was filled with more than just stories about his life, because the political atmosphere when he was composing was so relevant to the music world at the time. But all-in-all I guess I'm glad that I read it. Now I need to listen to more Rossini than just the Barber of Seville!

[Andlandm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good bio of Rossini focusing on his life, and not so much about the operas, although all are noted. Very focused on his later in life illness and on his childhood, as there are newly available letters to his parents which include new information.