La donna del lago to Naples in early June with no projects in the offing, except to become involved with overseeing a new production of his "La gazza ladra" there. Also, a commission from Milan's La Scala for an opera, which would become "Bianca e Falliero", had been offered and was planned for December of that year. Suddenly, the Italian composer Gaspare Spontini withdrew from a commitment to write two operas for the Naples house that season, thus leaving a huge gap. Rossini was quickly asked to write an opera for a September premiere; rather than use an existing libretto, the house insisted upon
Cristoforo Colombo (opera) performed in a revised version at La Scala, Milan. It had a number of performances throughout Italy, many of them conducted by Arturo Toscanini, and in Buenos Aires. The opera's North American premiere was presented by the Philadelphia-Chicago Grand Opera Company at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera House on November 20, 1913, with Titta Ruffo in the title role, Rosa Raisa as Queen Isabella of Spain, Amedeo Bassi as Don Fernan Guevara, and Gustave Huberdeau as Don Roldano Ximenes. Despite initial stage success, a massive cut of the first version, of some 100 pages of orchestral score, led to the published