$400) after the first three performances, which he was to conduct
seated at the pianoforte in the orchestra, as was then the custom.
He seems to have agreed to take any libretto submitted by the
impresario and approved by the public censor; but there are
indications that Sterbini, who was to write the libretto, had
already suggested a remodelling of Paisiello's "Barber." In order
to expedite the work of composition it was provided in the contract
that Rossini was to take lodgings with a singer named Zamboni, to
whom the honor fell of being the original of the town factotum
in Rossini's opera. Some say that Rossini completed the score in
thirteen days; some in fifteen. Castil-Blaze says it was a month,
but the truth is that the work consumed less than half that period.
Donizetti, asked if he believed that Rossini had really written the
score in thirteen days, is reported to have replied, no doubt with
a malicious twinkle in his eyes: "It is very possible; he is so
lazy." Paisiello was still alive, and so was at least the memory of
his opera, so Rossini, as a precautionary measure, thought it wise
to spike, if possible, the guns of an apprehended opposition. So
he addressed a letter to the venerable composer, asking leave to
make use of the subject. He got permission and then wrote a preface
to his libretto (or had Serbini write it for him), in which,
while flattering his predecessor, he nevertheless contrived to
indicate that he considered the opera of that venerable musician
old-fashioned, undramatic, and outdated. "Beaumarchais's comedy,
entitled 'The Barber of Seville, or the Useless Precaution,'"
he wrote, "is presented at Rome in the form of a comic drama under
the title of 'Almaviva, ossia l'inutile Precauzione,' in order
that the public may be fully convinced of the sentiments of respect
and veneration by which the author of the music of this drama is
animated with regard to the celebrated Paisiello, who has already