La gazza ladra Bellini's "I Puritani" starts with exactly the same words) are two examples of Rossini's brilliant vocal writing. Notes Sources 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
La casa disabitata in Dresden. The story is not original. The opera's title, plot, setting, and characters are the same as those of Giovanni Giraud's one-act farce "La casa disabitata", first performed in 1808 and published in 1825. Giraud's play was also the basis of the two-act opera "La casa disabitata", composed by Lauro Rossi to a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti. Rossi's opera premiered at La Scala to great success in 1834, a year before Princess Amalie's version, and was subsequently performed throughout Italy and in Paris. Princess Amalie's "La casa disabitata" was performed in the small court theatre of Pillnitz Castle on