Il Signor Bruschino, a short farce in one act, was premiered in Venice at the Teatro del San Moise on January 27 in 1813. By all accounts, it was a terrible fiasco, and Rossini himself even referred to it in later years as a "sin" of his youth. The score is really quite good and contains much strong music, but the critics and public of the time blamed Rossini—and his inclusion on some very non-traditional elements—for the opera's failure. One of the effects which drew critical and public fury was the aleatoric beating of violin bows on the orchestra's candle stands during the overture: they were to beat out a steady half note rhythm where chords would ordinarily be sounded. The part of the buffo bass is composed at the top of his register, and the soprano's music is composed at the lower end of hers. Rossini composed a funeral march in the middle of one of the most comic scenes, and in the finale the only syllable which is audible to the audience is "tito, tito, tito" due to the younger Bruschino's comical stuttering. Instead of finding these effects amusing or novel, the critics and audience thought that their intelligence had been insulted; rumors arose that Rossini had purposely written bad music in order to get back at the impresario of the San Moise theater. The audience booed and hissed, and the critics tore Rossini apart mercilessly.

The libretto for Il Signor Bruschino was written by Giuseppe Maria Foppa, also the author of L'Inganno Felice, La Scala di Seta, and Sigismondo. In later years, Foppa would reminisce that it was his libretti which helped launch Rossini on his stellar career. He took as the basis for his libretto a French play by Alissan de Chazet and E. T. Maurice Ourry. Entitled La fils par hasard, ou Ruse et folie; its plot was incredibly complex and had to be pared down. Not only did Foppa eliminate subplots, but he cut whole sections of the play and removed characters from the story. Whereas the original play was a comedy in five acts in the French manner, Foppa's libretto is a short, one-act farce, designed specifically for the Venice theater at which Rossini was working.

Rossini had begun composing for the San Moise theater in 1810, a theater which specialized in short farcical works, either comic or sentimental. Il Signor Bruschino was Rossini's last work for the San Moise, ending a three year stint in which he had produced many short works popular with the public. Although Il Signor Bruschino was a complete failure, it was written at the same time that Rossini was at work on Tancredi, which was a resounding popular success.

Il Signor Bruschino was performed very rarely during Rossini's lifetime, and attained its greatest popularity in France. There the score was adapted for the French stage by Jacques Offenbach. The opera was performed at the Theatre des Bouffes Parisiens in 1857 to critical and public acclaim.

© All Music Guide

Overture to Il signor Bruschino

The ninth opera of Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was witty, funny, sentimental, and absurd, a wonderfully potent combination both theatrically and musically. Even its overture or, as it was originally called, its Sinfonia, shares these qualities. The slow introduction is at first sentimental but becomes absurd when, it an innovation that startled contemporary audiences, the violinists took their bows and tapped a characteristic rhythm on the metal candle holders on their music stands. The main body of the overture features a witty first theme for the violins interspersed with humorous dissonances in the cellos and basses and a warm and witty second theme for the winds also interspersed with humorous dissonances in the cellos and basses. After a typically brief development and an even briefer recapitulation, Rossini brings the Overture to a close with a fast and massive final cadence, which is interrupted once more by the tapping of the violin bows.

© James Leonard, All Music Guide