ABSTRACT
The first performance in French translation of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia as Le barbier de Seville offers an opportunity to reverse this procedure, and to investigate the exact circumstances under which the performance took place. Castil-Blaze's arrangement of Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia can be taken as a typical example of his working methods in terms both of scope and quality. The great success of the performances of Il barbiere and other works at the Theatre Italien in the period between 1819 and when Rossini took up permanent residence in Paris was critical to his subsequent fame. The state of Rossini's opera in which it was performed in 1821 is clear, and this may now be juxtaposed with what, for Jauss, is the critical phase of interpreting the reception of the work.
