Italian opera in bringing the art form back to life again. Romantic opera, which placed emphasis on the imagination and the emotions began to appear in the early 19th century, and because of its arias and music, gave more dimension to the extreme emotions which typified the theater of that era. In addition, it is said that fine music often excused glaring faults in character drawing and plot lines. Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868) initiated the Romantic period. His first success was an "opera buffa" (comic opera), "La Cambiale di Matrimonio" (1810). His reputation still survives today through his "Barber of Seville" (1816), and
Gioachino Rossini use of an exciting buildup of orchestral sound over a repeated phrase, which is now commonly known as a "Rossini crescendo". Until his retirement in 1829, Rossini had been the most popular opera composer in history. Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born into a family of musicians in Pesaro, a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy that was then part of the Papal States. His father, Giuseppe, was a horn player and inspector of slaughterhouses. His mother, Anna, was a singer and a baker's daughter. Rossini's father was sympathetic to the French Revolution and welcomed Napoleon's troops when they arrived