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
American Opera Society American Opera Society The American Opera Society (AOS) was a New York City based musical organization that presented concert and semi-staged performances of operas between 1951 and 1970. The company was highly influential in sparking and perpetuating the post World War II bel canto revival, particularly through a number of highly lauded productions of rarely heard works by Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini. The AOS also presented many operas to the American public for the first time, including the United States premieres of Benjamin Britten's "Billy Budd", Giuseppe Verdi's "Giovanna d'Arco", George Frideric Handel's "Hercules" and Hector Berlioz's