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 (play) cynical. As he says in "The Barber of Seville": "I must force myself to laugh at everything lest I be obliged to weep." Though he is normally calm, collected and intelligent, he can be irrational when angered. The name 'Figaro' was invented by Beaumarchais for this character, and it has been theorized by Frédéric Grendel that it is made from a phonetic transcription of the words "fils Caron" (Caron having been the given surname of the playwright.) The role was created in "The Barber of Seville" by Beaumarchais's friend Préville. However, when "The Marriage of Figaro" went into production almost