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
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