Hi: There was this episode of Seinfeld called The Barber where Jerry doesn't like his old barber Gino, so he secretly hire another barber Enzo. When Gino went to Jerry's house to look for Enzo, there's this very familiar opera tune playing in the background. Can anyone tell me the name of the tune and which opera its from? Thanks in advance!
opera tune from "The Barber" episode
S05E08 The BarberretroAug 20, 19985 years later3 posts by 3 posters
❓ Question
Fans identify the opera music featured in "The Barber" episode as being from Rossini's "The Barber of Seville."
3 posts
===============================================
I know nothing of Opera but duh?, would Barber of Seville be correct, Alex?
================================================
The Barber Of Seville
(Il barbiere di Siviglia)
Composer: Gioacchino Antonio Rossini
Libretto: Cesare Sterbini
(based on a comedy by Pierre de Beaumarchais)
Language: Italian
Premiere: Rome, 20 February 1816Characters:
Dr. Bartolo - bass
Berta, his housekeeper - mezzo-soprano
Rosina, his ward - mezzo-soprano
Basilio, her music teacher - bass
Figaro, a barber - baritone
Count Almaviva - tenor
Fiorello, his servant - bass Time: 17th Century
Place: Seville
Recommended Recording(s): Il barbier de S�ville (complete)
Erich Leinsdorf, cond.
Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters, Giorgio Tozzi
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus
RCA Victor Gold Seal #6505-2-RG (3 CDs) The Barber of Seville was not the original title of this
opera, although it was of the Beaumarchais play
on which it is based. It was Almaviva, ossia l'inutile
precauzione (Almaviva, or the Futile Precaution).
The reason Rossini took the futile precaution of retitling
the work was that a Barber of Seville set to
music by Giovanni Paisiello had been popular on the
operatic stage for more than thirty years, and
Rossini did not wish to offend the respected and irascible
composer of over one hundred operas, who
was then seventy-five years old. Despite the precaution, Paisiello's followers (some say
inspired by the old man) set up such a din of
shouting and catcalls at the premiere of Rossini's work
that it was a bad failure. Rossini, who had
conducted, slunk out of the theatre, but when his leading
lady later called to console him, she reported
that he was imperturbably asleep in bed. The second and subsequent performances that week went
better, but the initial failure made for a slow
start for the long and wide popularity of this work. As for
Paisiello, he died three and a half months
later, and never knew that Rossini's work would completely
overshadow his own. As a matter of fact,
when Paisiello's work is occasionally put on today by some
opera workshop, one is struck by the many
outward similarities; yet the vigor, the vitality, the
musical humor that have made the younger man's work
survive many thousands of performances are found in much
smaller quantities in the Paisiello score.
Rossini's opera won not only the love of millions but the
respect and affection of such utterly differently
oriented composers as Beethoven, Wagner and Brahms.OVERTURE
The overture that we always hear nowadays was not the
original overture to the opera, which consisted
of a m�lange of popular Spanish tunes. That one, somehow or
other, managed to get lost soon after the
first performance. Rossini, a notably lazy fellow,
thereupon dug up an old overture from his trunk, one
that he had composed seven years earlier for a forgotten
tidbit called L'Equivoco stravagante. It had
also been useful when he ran short of overtures for two
other operas, Aureliano in Palmira and
Elizabeth, Queen of England. And though its gay, tripping
tunes would scarcely seem to serve well for
a tragedy about the Queen of England, it serves so well for
The Barber of Seville that certain musical
commentators have imagined they saw in it musical portraits
of Rosina, Figaro, and Lord knows what
else.ACT 1
Scene 1
On a street in Seville a hired band of musicians gathers to
accompany young Count Almaviva as he
serenades his lovely Sevillian inamorata, Rosina. It's a
very pretty, florid serenade the Count delivers (
Ecco ridente). No use, though; the music fails to summon
Rosina, who is closely watched by her old
guardian Dr. Bartolo. The musicians are dismissed with
considerable trouble by the Count and his
servant, Fiorello, and presently a jolly baritone is heard
tra-la-la-ing off stage. It is Figaro the barber,
sounding off in praise of himself and telling us how
indispensable he is to everyone in town. This
self-endorsement is, of course, the delightful Largo al
factotum. It quickly turns out that Figaro has
known the Count a long time; in fact, there aren't a lot of
people around town who Figaro doesn't
know. The Count - with the aid of a bit of ready cash -
enlists Figaro in his purpose to marry Rosina,
and they begin to make plans. But they are interrupted by
Dr. Bartolo, who leaves his house muttering
that he plans to marry Rosina himself that very day. Now the two conspirators have to act very quickly. With
Bartolo gone from the house, Almaviva tries
another serenade, and this time he identifies himself as
Lindoro. Also, this time he gets a response.
Rosina begins to answer favorably from the balcony, when
she is forcibly drawn back by someone
inside. The quick brain of Figaro at once hatches the plot.
Almaviva shall disguise himself as a drunken
soldier and gain entrance into the house by saying that the
army has billeted him there. The idea appeals
to the Count, and the scene ends with a jolly duet as the
lover expresses his delight over the prospects
of success, while the barber expresses his delight over the
prospect of getting paid.Scene 2
Things happen pretty fast and furious in the second scene,
which takes place in Dr. Bartolo's house.
Perhaps the best way to keep them straight is to make
special notes of the big arias and concerted
numbers. First, then, there is the famous coloratura aria
Une voce poco fa. In it Rosina first admits her
love for the unknown serenader Lindoro, then vows to marry
him despite her guardian, and goes on to
tell what a fine, docile wife she could make until
thwarted. Under such circumstances she can be as
devilish as any other shrew. (Usually, in modern
performances, this role is sung by a coloratura soprano.
That, however, is not the way Rossini wrote it. He intended
it for a coloratura mezzo-soprano, a rather
rare phenomenon in the twentieth century.) After Rosina's
aria, she has a cordial little talk with Figaro,
the barber, and a less cordial one with Dr. Bartolo. The next big aria is known as La calunnia - in praise of
calumny or vicious gossip. Don Basilio, a music
master, reports to his old friend Dr. Bartolo that Count
Almaviva has arrived in town, and that he is
Rosina's mysterious lover. How is he to be discredited?
Why, says Basilio, by calumny. And that is the
occasion for the aria, in which evil whispers are
graphically described as developing into a veritable
storm of disapprobation. Following this comes a long and
rather coy dialogue between Figaro and
Rosina in which the barber tells the girl that a poor young
man named Lindoro is in love with her, and
she had better write him a note. Rosina, as a matter of
fact, has already written the note, and she gives it
to the barber to be delivered. There is then another
dialogue - a short one - in which Rosina tries to
mislead her old guardian with a half dozen lies, all of
which he sees through. Roused to fury by these attacks on his dignity, Dr. Bartolo
has the third big aria of this scene, A un
dottor della mia sorte. A professional man of his standing,
he says, can't be treated like that - and he
orders Rosina locked up in her chamber. Soon after this enters Count Almaviva according to plan -
that is, disguised as a drunken soldier who
claims to be billeted in the doctor's house. None of the
doctor's protests can help him; the apparently
drunken soldier disregards his evidence of exemption,
threatens him with his sword, shouts and
curses...but also manages, sub rosa, to let Rosina know he
is Lindoro. Everything develops into a a
terrific uproar as, one by one, the servant Berta, the
barber Figaro, and the music master Basilio join in.
Finally the police break up the row. The Count is about to
be arrested, when he privately shows the
police officer his true rank, and the act ends with a
brilliant nine-part chorus in which everyone agrees
that the whole situation is quite insane.ACT II
With the beginning of the second act confusion is even
worse confounded. Count Almaviva comes to
Bartolo's house in a new disguise - the black cloak and
shovel hat of the seventeenth-century professor.
He says he is substituting for Don Basilio, who is sick,
and he insists on giving Rosina a music lesson.
During that lesson (in most opera houses), the leading
soprano usually interpolates anything from "Home
Sweet Home" to the most elaborate coloratura aria. But for
the original score Rossini provided a song
called L'Inutile precauzione, which was also the original
subtitle to the opera. At any rate, Dr. Bartolo
doesn't like this "modern music", as he calls it, and
obliges in his turn with a silly, old-fashioned ditty. A moment later Figaro enters and insists on shaving the
doctor; and while the old fellow in handicapped
with a face full of lather, arrangements are made by the
lovers for an elopement that evening. But things
are just a little too clear to satisfy the authors of this
opera, and so Don Basilio enters. He is, of course,
not sick at all; but in a very amusing quintet everyone
persuades him that he has scarlet fever, and he is
packed off to bed. All these unusual developments have
aroused Dr. Bartolo's suspicions, and at the
end of another amusing concerted number, he shoos everyone
out. Then, by way of contrast, there is a
cute little song for Berta, the maid, who remarks on the
idiocy of every old fool's wanting to get married. At this point, the orchestra paints a vivid storm to
indicate that there is weather outside, and also to
suggest the passage of some time. (The music for this was
borrowed by Rossini from his own opera La
pietra del paragone.) Now - enter the Count and Figaro in
cloaks, ready for the elopement. First,
however, they must persuade Rosina that their intentions
are honorable, for until this point she does not
know that her Lindoro and the Count Almaviva are one and
the same. They are soon ready, and are
singing the elopement trio (Zitti, zitti) when they find
the ladder gone! It turns out later that Dr. Bartolo
has taken it away as he went off to arrange his own
marriage to Rosina. And so, when Basilio and a notary arrive - sent by Bartolo
- the Count bribes these newcomers to
officiate at his wedding to Rosina. The hasty ceremony is
scarcely over when Bartolo returns with
police officers. Everything is now explained, and the
doctor is even partially reconciled to his defeat,
when the Count assures him he may keep Rosina's dowry for
himself. The comedy thus ends - as it
should - with general rejoicing. And if you want to find out what happened subsequently to
these characters, follow this link to
Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which is based on
Beaumarchais' sequel to his Barber of Seville.All right, settle down, we don't need a history lesson!
Aaron