Luigi Zamboni Zamboni managed an Italian opera company in St Petersburg for two seasons, performing Rossini and other works. Luigi Zamboni Luigi Zamboni (1767 – 28 February 1837) was an Italian operatic buffo bass-baritone. He was born in Bologna, where he began his singing career in 1791 in a production of Cimarosa's "Il fanatico burlato". Engagements followed in Naples, Parma, Venice and Rome, where he sang in operas by Valentino Fioravanti, Paisiello and others. He retired from the stage in 1825. He died in Florence. The part of Figaro in "The Barber of Seville" was written for Zamboni by Gioachino Rossini, who
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