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.
Samuel Barber Heinsheimer, as an executive at G. Schirmer, would have been unlikely to have allowed Barber into the Schirmer offices to watch him "rip apart the music that his company had invested money in publishing". In 1943, Barber and Menotti purchased a house in Mount Kisco, New York. Barber won the Pulitzer Prize twice: in 1958 for his first opera "Vanessa," and in 1963 for his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Barber spent many years in isolation after the harsh rejection of his third opera "Antony and Cleopatra". He suffered from depression, and was also beset by alcoholism. The opera was