Matilde di Shabran, or Beauty with a Heart of Iron, is a comic melodrama in two acts, with a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti. The story goes that it was already halfway through December of 1820, and Rossini still hadn't received the first act of the new work for setting. The new opera was to be based on the play Mathilde, by Jacques Marie Boutet de Monvel of 1799. Rossini, however, found the verse stiff, and thought that the story would not get past the censors. Because the time was so short, Ferretti took one of his unused libretti, called Corradino the Terrible, and reworked it into the new one. The story had already been set by Stefano Pavesi to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi, and given as the opera Il trionfo della bella at Venice in 1808. It was also produced as a play by Antonio Sografi. The premiere of Mathilde was postponed until the end of the opera season so that librettist and composer could both finish the work, but still Rossini had to reuse much of his own music when setting the score. He took music from Ricciardo e Zoraide, Ermione, and Eduardo e Cristina. He even collaborated with Giovanni Pacini on three of the numbers. The press was not kind to the libretto, which is one of the longest Rossini ever set. They said that it was repetitive and vulgar, not to mention excessively long.

The opera premiered at the Teatro Apollo of Rome on February 24, 1821. Although Niccolò Paganini was the orchestral conductor, and much of the music is brilliant and imaginative, the opera was not well received. There were as many catcalls in the audience as there was applause. Nevertheless, the opera gained in popularity throughout the century. Matilde di Shabran was blessed with innumerable revivals throughout Europe to great public and critical acclaim. It had a modern revival in 1974 at the Teatro Margherita di Genova.



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