The Barber of Sevilleby Gioacchino Rossini established several records:it was composed in only two weeks, by a 24-year old who had already written 16 operas! The music flows forth with breathtaking limpidity. Serenades, duets and ensembles brighten the comedy with vocal flourishes and verbal antics. And yet, the genius of Rossini resides in mastering the physical crescendo, designed to increase tension until the audience is boiling with impatience and ready to explode. The overture immediately offers a surprise: a tutti warns the audience that the show has started and then a delightful melody takes over, is repeated and swells to the breaking point...Laughter and rhythms burst forth and overflow. All the insolence of Beaumarchais’s play is captured in the madcap universe created by Rossini.