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
Raquel Pierotti débuts at the Opera de Paris as Rosina in Rossini’s Barber of Seville, as well as at La Scala, Milan, as Marcellina in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. Since then she has been a frequent guest at La Scala where she sang Clarice in La pietra del paragone (Rossini), Smeton in Anna Bolena (Donizetti), Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini), Isabella in L’italiana in Algeri (Rossini), Maddalena in Il viaggio a Reims (Rossini), Cecilio in Lucio Silla (Mozart), and Fenena in Nabucco (Verdi) for the 1986/1987 Season Opening Night as well as in the tournées in Berlin, Japan (Tokyo,