La Gazza Ladra

Together with librettist, Giovanni Gherardini, Rossini opened La gazza ladra at Teatro alla Scala in Milan on 31st March 1817. The opera was a success from its premiere and deservedly entered the already substantial catalogue of Rossini's works and, at the same time, generated a new group - the semi-serious genre. With La gazza ladra Rossini succeeds in mixing comic-sentimental and dramatic elements, thus achieving a music style which is enriched, modulated to suit events, forerunning an aesthetic ideal that was to be formalised some years later. The brilliant, rousing ouverture was made famous thanks to the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's motion picture A Clockwork Orange.

The story, inspired by a sad event that had really happened, is based on a rather complex plot but does have a happy ending, and exploits mainly a weepy, pathetic tone, concentrating on the character of Ninetta, who is innocent but considered guilty.

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