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
La gazza ladra La gazza ladra La gazza ladra (, The Thieving Magpie) is a "melodramma" or opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on "La pie voleuse" by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The composer Giaochino Rossini wrote quickly, and "La gazza ladra" was no exception. According to legend, before the first performance of the opera, the producer assured the composition of the overture by locking Rossini in a room, from the window of which the composer threw out the sheets of music to the copyists who then wrote the orchestral parts, to