Inside Bartolo’s house, a soldier’s disguise unsettles every carefully laid plan. Rossini draws the characters’ competing voices into a finale where bewilderment gives way to exhilarating musical confusion. i Work Information Composer: Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) Title: The Barber of Seville ( Il barbiere di Siviglia ), Act I Year of composition: 1816 Premiere: 20 February 1816, Teatro Argentina, Rome, as part of the opera's first performance Libretto: Cesare Sterbini, after Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville Genre: Italian comic opera ( opera buffa ) Musical context: Early nineteenth-century Italian opera and the bel canto tradition Structure: Nine numbered musical sections joined by recitatives; the first includes the opening chorus and the Count's first cavatina Tonality: Individual numbers occupy different keys. The Act I finale begins and ends in C major, with its slow concertato in A-flat major. Duration: Ap...