Rossini: The Barber of Seville, Act II – Analysis

Bartolo falls asleep during the singing lesson, giving Rosina and Almaviva, disguised as her music teacher, a chance to speak freely.

i Work Information

Composer:

Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868)

Title:

The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Act II

Year of composition:

1816

Premiere:

20 February 1816, Teatro Argentina, Rome, as part of Almaviva, o sia L’inutile precauzione

Genre:

Comic opera in two acts (melodramma buffo)

Musical Period:

Early nineteenth-century Italian opera, in the bel canto tradition

Structure:

Recitatives and nine musical numbers, from “Pace e gioia” to the Finaletto

Duration:

Approx. 45–65 minutes for Act II, depending on cuts and tempi

Instrumentation:

Vocal soloists, male chorus, strings, woodwind, brass, bass drum and keyboard

Libretto:

Cesare Sterbini, after Beaumarchais’s play

Reference version:

The Roman sequence of the act, including Almaviva’s final aria

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Bartolo insists on sitting through Rosina’s singing lesson. He has no idea that the teacher beside the piano is Count Almaviva in disguise. Rosina recognises the man she loves, and the two try to communicate without giving themselves away. To Bartolo, she is performing an aria; to the lovers, its words describe their own predicament. Act II of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville draws its comedy from this deceptively simple situation: everybody hears the same song, but not everybody understands what is being said.

Rossini turns that difference into music. In the opening duet, the disguised visitor's endlessly repeated greeting tests Bartolo’s patience. Later, the real Basilio’s unexpected appearance produces five separate reactions that gradually settle into a shared, insistently polite farewell. And when Figaro finally begins the shave, even the colour of the violins changes as the lovers look for a moment to speak privately. Who hears whom helps determine the shape and sound of the scene.

The pacing is just as carefully managed. A key is found or a letter changes hands in a few lines of recitative, while an ensemble can prolong an awkward encounter or a farewell. Then comes the Temporale. The singers fall silent, leaving the orchestra to depict the storm that separates the daytime intrigue from the lovers’ meeting at night. When the action resumes, the singing lesson already seems far away.

This analysis follows the sequence that includes “Cessa di più resistere”, Almaviva’s substantial final aria. Because it is often cut, its presence makes a marked difference to the length and dramatic balance of the ending: after the marriage is secured, the Count is given an extended scene of his own. For the opera as a whole, see the Work Guide and the analysis of Act I.

The Story

Doctor Bartolo intends to marry Rosina, his ward. She is in love with Lindoro, the name Count Almaviva has used in courting her. After his earlier attempt to enter the house as a soldier, the Count returns as Don Alonso and offers to take the place of her allegedly ill music teacher, Don Basilio. To gain Bartolo’s confidence, he hands him one of Rosina’s letters and suggests a way to make her doubt the man she loves. Rosina recognises Lindoro and agrees to take the lesson.

Figaro arrives to shave Bartolo and manages to obtain the balcony key. The real Basilio then appears, threatening to expose the Count’s disguise. The others insist that he is unwell and persuade him to leave; a purse from Almaviva makes the decision easier. While Figaro keeps the doctor occupied, the lovers agree to meet at midnight and escape. Bartolo overhears a reference to the disguise and throws them out. Later, he shows Rosina the letter the supposed teacher has handed him. Convinced that Lindoro intends to give her up to Count Almaviva—and not knowing they are the same man—she reveals the plan to escape.

After the storm, Figaro and Almaviva enter by the balcony. Rosina receives them angrily, believing that Lindoro has betrayed her. The Count reveals his true identity, and the misunderstanding dissolves: Lindoro and Almaviva are the same man. The three prepare to leave, only to discover that the ladder is missing. Meanwhile, the notary summoned by Bartolo arrives. Figaro directs him to draw up the lovers’ marriage contract, and the Count secures Basilio’s signature as a witness with a gift and a threat. By the time Bartolo returns with the authorities, the document has been signed. The doctor then admits that he removed the ladder to prevent the escape; without intending to, he has given the lovers time to marry.

Movements / Structure

The act opens and closes in Bartolo’s house. In its first part, a conversation between host and visitor expands into a music lesson, an arietta and a quintet. In the second, Berta’s solo gives way to an orchestral interlude, the night-time trio and the public settlement. The table follows the numbering 10–18, grouping the Count’s accompanied scene and aria as No. 17.

Number	Musical section	Place in the action
10	Duet, “Pace e gioia” — Almaviva and Bartolo	Don Alonso pays a visit
11	“Contro un cor che accende amore” — Rosina and Almaviva	The singing lesson and the lovers’ private exchange
12	Arietta, “Quando mi sei vicina” — Bartolo	The doctor sings and Figaro arrives
13	Quintet, “Don Basilio!” — Rosina, Almaviva, Figaro, Bartolo, Basilio	Basilio’s farewell, the shave and the discovery of the disguise
14	Aria, “Il vecchiotto cerca moglie” — Berta	The housekeeper comments on the household
15	Temporale — orchestra	The storm and the transition to the night-time meeting
16	Trio, “Ah! qual colpo inaspettato!” / “Zitti, zitti” — Rosina, Almaviva, Figaro	Recognition and an attempted escape
17	Accompanied scene and aria, “Cessa di più resistere” — Almaviva, Bartolo and chorus	The marriage is publicly acknowledged
18	Finaletto, “Di sì felice innesto” — ensemble and chorus	The final farewell and blessing

Some of the most decisive turns take place between the numbers. In recitative, the Count hands over the letter, Rosina learns Lindoro’s true identity, and Figaro discovers that the ladder is gone. The larger numbers give space to the reactions and plans surrounding these events. During “Zitti, zitti”, for example, the three characters agree on their escape; one short line in the following recitative is enough to reveal that the plan cannot be carried out.

Musical Analysis

“Pace e gioia” — A Greeting That Will Not End

The lower strings are already moving gently when Don Alonso enters. In the Andantino moderato, a short phrase passes from the first violins to the clarinet, whose reply is supported by the bassoon. The Count begins his greeting by repeating a single note. Bartolo answers before the conversation has had a chance to acquire a subject. The little orchestral figure comes round again, and the visitor is free to offer much the same wish as before.

At first, the exchange is a model of good manners. The asides reveal the distance between the two men. Bartolo is trying to place a face he thinks he has seen before. Almaviva needs time and knows exactly how to get a little more. The gentler the pace, the clearer Bartolo’s mounting impatience becomes. Only when the duet gives way to recitative can the visitor get down to business and bring out Rosina’s letter.

“Contro un cor” — Singing in Front of the Guardian

The lesson begins with something of the ceremony of a public performance. In the D-major Maestoso, strong orchestral attacks leave gaps through which quick figures pass between the strings and woodwind. Sterbini has the Count sit down at the piano, and the historical orchestral score gives the instrument its own staves for part of the introduction. By the time Rosina sings, the orchestra has established a much larger space than a private lesson would suggest.

Rosina takes up “Contro un cor” on an upbeat and soon stretches individual syllables across groups of fast notes. The accompaniment then leaves her more room for direct speech. Bartolo falls asleep, Rosina appeals to Lindoro for help, and the Count answers her within the same number. The libretto labels the piece an aria and has Rosina introduce it onstage as a rondo from a new opera. The historical orchestral edition calls it a duet, an apt description of the space it gives to the lovers’ conversation.

As Bartolo wakes, Rosina can slip back into the part of a pupil. The phrasing of “Cara immagine ridente”, and the light accompaniment with touches of pizzicato, make the return to the song audible. A show of obedient musicianship has opened into a private exchange and recovered its outward form just in time.

“Quando mi sei vicina” — The Song Bartolo Remembers

Bartolo declares Rosina’s music dull and invokes Caffarelli, the celebrated eighteenth-century singer. Divided violins introduce the arietta with little trills, and Bartolo takes up his tune over a spare string accompaniment. It is the sort of shapely, short-breathed song he can stop and start again. The minuet is part of his words and his stage business. The arietta itself is marked Allegro and moves in compound duple time (6/8).

Bartolo pauses to explain that the song originally said Giannina, a name he has obligingly changed to Rosina. The original tempo returns when he starts singing again. By then Figaro has arrived with his shaving basin and begun to imitate him from behind. Rosina has the benefit of both performances, and the orchestra keeps time for the doctor and his uninvited partner.

“Don Basilio!” — Five Reactions and One Farewell

Basilio walks into a room where everybody is supposed to believe that he is ill. The quintet opens with a sudden, forceful orchestral attack and separate, successive vocal entries. Rosina recognises him at once; the Count and Figaro realise the danger; Bartolo is perplexed; and Basilio simply says hello. The small gaps between their phrases allow each person’s confusion to register before the five voices begin to act together.

Almaviva and Figaro seize the conversation by insisting on the fever. The score marks the moment when the Count slips Basilio a purse. In the following Moderato the strings turn to pizzicato, and the Count starts the “Buona sera” in a gently turned phrase. The others take it up, with small differences of timing and accent. Basilio now has his own reason to cooperate. The transition from the blunt exclamations at the entrance to the courtesy of the farewell is clear enough to carry the joke in a recording.

The Shave — Violins Behind the Conversation

The shave unfolds within the same quintet. At the new Allegro, as Figaro fastens the towel around Bartolo’s neck, the first violins set off alone in sixteenth notes, marked piano and leggero. In the fifth bar the instruction changes to al ponticello: the bow moves close to the bridge, producing a thin, edged tone. Second violins and violas add short repeated figures, while cellos and double basses provide intermittent support. In bar eight Bartolo manages to say “Stringi”. His voice briefly interrupts the movement in the strings, while he remains preoccupied with the towel.

Example 1. “Don Basilio!” quintet, Act II, shaving Allegro, mm. 1–8 from the change of tempo. Bartolo and strings. Historical G. Ricordi orchestral score, c. 1920, plate 112118, p. 335, digital copy at IMSLP. View the score on p. 335

Over the moving strings, the Count and Rosina set a time for their escape. Figaro claims to have something in his eye to turn Bartolo’s attention back to the shave, and the lovers go so far as to pretend to be singing a scale. The arrangement depends on the strands of conversation staying apart. Then Almaviva lets slip the word travestimento, Bartolo repeats it, and the voices come into open conflict. The ensemble has made room for a deception that works and another that falls apart in the same room.

“Il vecchiotto cerca moglie” — A Little Time for Berta

Berta’s A-major Allegretto, in 2/4, begins with two bars of light, short notes in the strings. Flute, clarinet and first violins then bring in a figure whose detached notes give the opening its characteristic bounce. The soprano steps into a sound already suited to her amused survey of the household. The old man looking for a wife and the young woman looking for a husband come out as two balanced parts of the same observation.

Berta then asks what this thing called love can be. The orchestra gives the question a pause, and her answer comes in a run of quick syllables. The woman who was sizing up everybody else admits that she knows the feeling herself. The brisk pace leaves room for the moment to be rueful. When Bartolo returns in recitative, the machinery of the plot starts up again, and the housekeeper’s moment of reflection is over.

Temporale — The Orchestra Between Two Encounters

The letter has just turned Rosina’s anticipation into anger. The orchestra takes over with an Allegro in common time. Violas and cellos begin sottovoce. The flute has two short rising triplet figures, at the ends of the second and fifth bars. In bar seven the violins enter and the sparse exchanges settle into a steadier pattern of notes and rests. The double basses are silent throughout the first system. The storm begins with spacing and changes of colour that can be heard at very low volume.

Example 2. Orchestral Temporale, Act II, mm. 1–9. First system, with flute and strings. Historical G. Ricordi orchestral score, c. 1920, plate 112118, p. 372, digital copy at IMSLP. View the score on p. 372

Fast figures pass down into the strings and bassoons. Piccolo, flute and clarinets sharpen the repeated notes at the top of the texture, and horns and trumpets add weight to its emphatic attacks. The storm builds and subsides in waves. Near the end, the flute and the short notes of the strings can be picked out again over sustained low pitches. By the time the voices return, the noise has dwindled to a scale on which Figaro and the Count can make their way into the darkened room and ask for a light.

“Ah! qual colpo inaspettato!” — Recognition and an Attempt to Leave

Almaviva reveals his identity in recitative. Rossini begins the trio’s Andante with Rosina’s response. A strong orchestral accent gives way to a held pause and then to soft movement in the strings. The first scraps of her exclamation open into longer phrases. Once Almaviva joins her, the two voices have a shared feeling to express. Figaro has a different view of the room. He has been thinking about the hour and what might happen if they linger.

At “Zitti, zitti”, the pulse of the Allegro becomes easier to follow. Pizzicato strings mark it softly, while woodwind answer with short descending phrases. Almaviva sings the warning first. Rosina and Figaro take it up, and eventually the three sing it together. The passage sounds like a rehearsal for a quiet exit. After it ends, Figaro discovers in recitative that the ladder is gone. The plainness of that news, after so much coordinated effort, gives the turn its comic speed.

“Cessa di più resistere” — From a Signature to a Public Declaration

The notary arrives with his papers. Almaviva offers Basilio a ring and shows him his pistol, and Basilio agrees to witness the marriage. The signing takes place in recitative. The arrival of Bartolo and the authorities gives the document public significance. In the accompanied scene, Almaviva hands it to the magistrate and declares Rosina his wife. Strings break in with short attacks or hold notes under his words. The Count has the kind of orchestral backing that the signing itself passed without.

The aria has three distinct sections. In the Maestoso, Almaviva addresses Bartolo. A strong ascending figure runs into a short orchestral chord, leaving the tenor’s first command exposed. The triple-time Andante, “E tu, infelice vittima”, turns to Rosina. The key signature changes from two flats to four, returning to two for the last section. Violin triplets move under a more connected vocal line. After a brief exchange with the chorus, the Moderato “Ah, il più lieto, il più felice” gives the tenor room for long stretches of coloratura. The strings initially alternate plucked and bowed playing. Later the chorus sings simpler, shared phrases while the tenor continues his more elaborate line.

The Count has spent much of the opera getting words in edgeways under a borrowed name. Here he can take his time. For the first time in Act II he can prolong a declaration on this scale, with everyone else onstage obliged to hear him out.

“Di sì felice innesto” — Figaro Puts Out His Lantern

Recitative returns after the aria. Bartolo admits that he took the ladder away and the Count lets him keep the dowry. Figaro opens the Finaletto and puts out his lantern. Rosina and Almaviva then each have a verse, while the chorus returns to the same blessing. It is a clear, regular sequence after ensembles in which every voice had a separate task. Rosina remembers what her happiness cost her, and Almaviva names Lindoro one last time. He can say the name in front of everyone now.

In this live Pacific Northwest Opera performance at McIntyre Hall, Mount Vernon, on 6 March 2022, Gregory Buchalter conducts and Mitchell Kahn directs. Act II begins at 1:29:23. The production proceeds to the Finaletto without the Count’s large aria, “Cessa di più resistere”. A separate performance follows the video, and Riccardo Chailly’s recording under Further Listening also includes the aria.

Supplementary listening — “Cessa di più resistere”. Tenor Juan Diego Flórez performs Almaviva’s aria, which in the Roman sequence comes between the signing of the marriage contract and the Finaletto. This is a separate performance, not part of the Pacific Northwest Opera production above. It restores to the listening experience the Count’s extended display of vocal agility, making clear how much the musical proportions of the ending change when the aria is omitted. Its changing place in the opera’s early history is explored below in “A Chapter in the Life of the Work”. Watch on YouTube.

A Song That the Characters Can Hear

Rosina announces that her rondo comes from a new opera called L’inutile precauzione. To a spectator at the first performance, those words were already familiar from the title of the opera in front of them. The joke has a practical bearing on the scene. Bartolo hears something from his pupil’s repertoire. The Count hears an account of the position in which they find themselves. Once the doctor falls asleep, the lovers can give up the borrowed words and speak to each other within the same musical number.

This arrangement also helps explain what happened to the lesson in the theatre. Don Alonso asks Rosina what she would like to sing, giving the performer an unusually plausible opportunity to introduce another aria. The lesson could still take place, even when its music changed. What changed with it was the relation of the song to the lovers’ exchange. For a singer, this was an opening to bring something of her own repertory to the role. For the audience, it could change the shape of an entire scene.

Two Ways to Hear the Ending

In a performance with “Cessa”, the marriage is already signed when the Count begins his long aria. The additional time belongs to his change of public standing. He has his name, the document and the chorus on his side. The plot has reached its settlement and the music is free to dwell on one person’s experience of it before the celebration passes to the whole company.

In a shorter performance, the success of the trick and the collective blessing come much closer together. Figaro seems to put out his lantern almost as soon as the notary has helped settle the matter. Listen to the passage from the signing to the opening line of the Finaletto in both versions. The extra music gives the same outcome a different centre of gravity.

🪶 A Chapter in the Life of the Work

The Aria That Changed Voices

In August 1816, Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi returned to the role of Rosina at the Teatro Contavalli in Bologna, her home city. The contralto had first sung the part only a few months earlier, on 20 February, at Rome’s Teatro Argentina, opposite the Spanish tenor Manuel García, the first Count Almaviva. The Count’s name had even appeared in the opera’s original title: Almaviva, o sia L’inutile precauzione. In Bologna, however, something changed at the end of the performance. The Count’s great aria, “Cessa di più resistere”, was given to Rosina. Righetti-Giorgi sang it in a transposed key.

In the Roman version, the marriage is already secured when Almaviva begins this long aria: he can address Bartolo, Rosina and the company openly. At the Contavalli, that extended final statement belonged instead to the woman who, earlier in the act, had tried to speak secretly to her lover during a singing lesson. The lesson itself had changed, too. In place of “Contro un cor”, the first Rosina sang “La mia pace, la mia calma”. That autumn, at Florence’s Teatro della Pergola, a different song was substituted once again. The libretto for the Florentine production also omitted “Cessa di più resistere”. Within a matter of months, the same opera had acquired noticeably different endings.

But the aria’s journey did not end there. On 25 January 1817, Righetti-Giorgi appeared at Rome’s Teatro Valle as Angelina in the premiere of another Rossini opera, La Cenerentola. At its close, the heroine confronts the family that has mistreated her and chooses to forgive them. For her final rondo, “Non più mesta”, Rossini reused music from the last section of Almaviva’s aria. He did not transplant the entire piece: part of it acquired new words and a different dramatic purpose. The singer who had already performed “Cessa” in Bologna thus became a link between two distinct lives of the same music.

Those changes cannot easily be pieced together from the performance record alone. Much later, the conductor and editor Alberto Zedda examined manuscripts, early copies and editorial evidence to trace the changing forms of The Barber of Seville. Because reviews of the early Roman revivals do not mention the Count’s aria, he suggested that it might have been cut quite soon; the exact performance, however, remains unknown. Bologna provided firmer evidence. Zedda’s revised critical edition of 2009 assembled material from which the Contavalli production can be reconstructed. Today, therefore, it is possible to follow two documented paths: to hear “Cessa” in its place in the Roman version and to recognise its closing music in La Cenerentola, sung by the first Rosina in her new role as Angelina.

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🎧 Listening Guide

In “Pace e gioia”, wait for the clarinet’s answer to the strings. Hear how little the visitor’s greeting changes as Bartolo becomes increasingly impatient. At the lesson, listen for the point where Rosina’s elaborate vocal line makes room for the confidential exchange. The light accompaniment of “Cara immagine ridente” makes the return to the song easy to locate without surtitles.

At the start of “Don Basilio!”, follow the five voices as they react one after another. At “Buona sera” they still enter separately, but they now have a phrase in common. In the shave that follows, listen first for the violins on their own and then for the sharper sound as the bow moves closer to the bridge. The two passages are part of the same quintet, and they do different work in the scene.

In the storm, remember the flute’s short rising figures. Once the orchestra has reached its strongest attacks, wait for the flute and light string writing to become distinct again. The pizzicato in “Zitti, zitti” provides another clear landmark. The soft pulse tells you when the three singers have agreed on the pace at which they mean to leave.

Finally, compare the approaches to “Di sì felice innesto”. In the Pacific Northwest Opera performance, the ending follows quite quickly after the signing. In Chailly’s recording, listen for the three tempo sections of the Count’s aria and the moment the chorus acquires a phrase of its own. The difference can be measured by how long Figaro has to wait before he puts out his lantern.

🎶 Further Listening

• Claudio Abbado, 1971 · London Symphony Orchestra, Teresa Berganza, Luigi Alva, Hermann Prey and Enzo Dara (Deutsche Grammophon). Follow the shades of confidential conversation in “Contro un cor” and the precision with which the farewell passes from voice to voice in the quintet.
• Alceo Galliera, 1957 · Philharmonia Orchestra, Maria Callas, Luigi Alva and Tito Gobbi (EMI). Callas’s articulation in the lesson and Gobbi’s answering phrases make this a good recording for hearing how quickly a character takes shape in a few words.
• Riccardo Chailly, 1982 · Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala, Marilyn Horne, Paolo Barbacini and Leo Nucci (Sony Classical). This recording includes “Cessa di più resistere”. Hear how the tenor’s line changes as he turns from Bartolo to Rosina and then sings with the chorus.

📚 Further Reading

• Hilary Poriss, “Che vuol cantare? The Lesson Scene of Il barbiere di Siviglia”, in Changing the Score (Oxford University Press, 2009). The lesson scene provides a specific example of the freedom singers could exercise in adapting an opera to their own repertoire.
• Saverio Lamacchia, Il vero Figaro o sia il falso factotum (EDT, 2008). A study of the relationship between Figaro and Almaviva, grounded in the opera, its first singers and its stage history.
• Philip Gossett, Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera (University of Chicago Press, 2006). An account of how the sources and traditions of Italian opera bear on the choices made for a modern performance.

🔗 Related Works

• Giovanni Paisiello — Il barbiere di Siviglia (1782). The earlier setting of Beaumarchais’s play lets us compare how two composers pace a comic conversation between the same characters.
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Le nozze di Figaro, K. 492 (1786). The continuation of Beaumarchais’s story gives Rosina, the Count and Figaro different information in the same scene again, most conspicuously in the night-time finale.
• Gioachino Rossini — La Cenerentola (1817). “Non più mesta” is an opportunity to hear what becomes of the closing material from “Cessa di più resistere” when Angelina sings it.
• Gaetano Donizetti — Don Pasquale (1843). A sham wedding and a notary give this later comic opera a comparable way to bring a private deception out into the open.

🎼 Closing Reflection

Figaro puts out his lantern before the singing is over. As long as the light was needed, somebody had to find a door, look out for a visitor or watch where they put their feet. The room can go dark now. The people who remain in it know what name to call one another by.

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📖 Bibliography and Sources

The sequence of the numbers and the observations about vocal writing and orchestration were checked in the historical Ricordi full score. The stage directions and the order of the dialogue were checked against the Roman libretto and a transcription of Act II. The critical editions’ documentation and research on the first Rosina and the lesson scene informed the account of the opera’s early performances and its changing ending.

Scores

Gioachino Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia. Full orchestral score, G. Ricordi, c. 1920, plate 112118. Dover reprint, 1989. Act II, pp. 281–432. Digital copy at IMSLP.

Primary Sources

Cesare Sterbini, Alma viva, o sia, L’inutile precauzione. Rome, Giunchi e Mordacchini, 1816. Act II. Library of Congress digital facsimile and Libretti d’Opera Italiani transcription.

Secondary Sources

Saverio Lamacchia, “Righetti, Geltrude”, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 87, 2016.

Alberto Zedda, “Almaviva-Figaro”, Archivio Alberto Zedda.

Hilary Poriss, “Che vuol cantare? The Lesson Scene of Il barbiere di Siviglia”, in Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance. Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 135–150. Publisher’s abstract.

Digital Resources

Ricordi and Fondazione Rossini, documentation of Alberto Zedda’s critical edition of Il barbiere di Siviglia and its 2009 revision.

Bibliothèque nationale de France, work catalogue entry for Il barbiere di Siviglia.

Rossini Opera Festival, Il barbiere di Siviglia, premiere details and synopsis.