The Barber of Seville 1823, and became the first opera ever to be performed in Italian in New York, when Manuel Garcia (who played Almaviva) and his Italian troupe opened their first season there with "Il barbiere" on 29 November 1825 at the Park Theatre. The cast of eight had three other members of his family, including the 17-year-old Maria-Felicia, later known as Maria Malibran. The role of Rosina was originally written for a contralto. According to music critic Richard Osborne, writing in "The New Grove Dictionary of Opera", "it is important to record the degree to which singers have sometimes distorted Rossini’s intentions.
The Barber of Seville (1904 film) The Barber of Seville (1904 film) The Barber of Seville (), also released as The Barber of Sevilla, or the Useless Precaution, was a 1904 French silent film directed by Georges Méliès, based on the play of the same name by Pierre Beaumarchais. It was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 606–625 in its catalogues, where it was advertised as a "comédie burlesque en 7 actes, d'après Beaumarchais". Like several other of Méliès's longer films, two versions were released simultaneously: a complete 22-minute print and an abridged print. As with his 1904 film "Faust and Marguerite", Méliès