Rossini, Gioacchino Antonio

Italian composer. His first success was the opera Tancredi in 1813. In 1816 his opera buffa (comic opera) Il barbiere di Siviglia/The Barber of Seville was produced in Rome. He was the most successful opera composer of his time, producing 20 operas in the period 1815–23. He also created (with Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini) the 19th-century Italian operatic style.

After Guillaume Tell/William Tell (1829), Rossini gave up writing opera and his later years were spent in Bologna and Paris. Among the works of this period are the Stabat Mater (1842) and the piano music arranged for ballet by Ottorino Respighi as La boutique fantasque/The Fantastic Toyshop (1919).