Paris during the Bourbon Restoration "The Barber of Seville", by Gioachino Rossini, at the Théâtre-Italien in 1818, two years after its premiere in Rome. Rossini made modifications for the French audience, changing it from two to four acts and changing Rosina's part from a contralto to a soprano. This new version premiered at the Odeon Theater on 6 May 1824, with Rossini present, and remains today the version most used in opera houses around the world. At the beginning of the Restoration, the Paris Opera was located in the Salle Montansier on rue Richelieu, where the square Louvois is today. On 13 February 1820, the
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