The Barber of Seville (1948 film) The Barber of Seville (1948 film) The Barber of Seville (French: Le Barbier de Séville) is a French film directed by Jean Loubignac released in 1948. It is a screen version of the 1816 opera by Rossini based on the play by Beaumarchais (in the translation by Castil-Blaze). Filmed at the Billancourt Studios it uses the Théâtre national de l'Opéra-Comique production of the time. It was filmed in 1947, released in May 1948, and lasts around 95 minutes. The opera had been seen at all the principal lyric theatres in Paris; at the Salle Favart it had been performed over
Gioachino Rossini History of Western Music", "Rossini's fame surpassed that of any previous composer, and so, for a long time, did the popularity of his works. Audiences took to his music as if to an intoxicating drug—or, to put it more decorously, to champagne, with which Rossini's bubbly music was constantly compared." Rossini took existing operatic genres and forms and perfected them in his own style. Through his own work, as well as through that of his followers and imitators, Rossini's style dominated Italian opera throughout the first half of the 19th century. In his compositions, Rossini plagiarized freely from himself, a