William Matteuzzi tutte"), Vincenzo Bellini ("I Puritani" and "La Sonnambula"), Gaetano Donizetti ("La fille du régiment") and Giovanni Pacini ("L’ultimo giorno di Pompei"). A highly respected Rossini specialist, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1988 as Count Almaviva in "Il barbiere di Siviglia". He has performed Rossini's comic operas "La scala di seta", "L'occasione fa il ladro", "L'italiana in Algeri", "La gazza ladra", "La Cenerentola", "La pietra del paragone", "Il viaggio a Reims", "Le comte Ory" as well as his "opere serie" "Otello", "Zelmira, Armida", "Ricciardo e Zoraide", "Maometto II", "Semiramide", etc. He now mainly dedicates himself to teaching singing and
La Scala into a costume. As with most of the theatres at that time, La Scala was also a casino, with gamblers sitting in the foyer. Conditions in the auditorium, too, could be frustrating for the opera lover, as Mary Shelley discovered in September 1840: At the Opera they were giving Otto Nicolai's "Templario". Unfortunately, as is well known, the theatre of La Scala serves, not only as the universal drawing-room for all the society of Milan, but every sort of trading transaction, from horse-dealing to stock-jobbing, is carried on in the pit; so that brief and far between are the snatches