All numbers of Rossini's Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (Naples, 1815) are borrowed from his previous operas with the exception of only one totally original piece. Most of the reused music was selected from the best material from Aureliano in Palmira and Sigismondo, which were previous fiascoes in other cities, but Rossini also borrowed from Ciro in Babilonia and the Cantata Edipo Coloneo. In spite of the numerous self-borrowings, Elisabetta cannot be considered a simple pastiche, since Rossini reworked all the reused materials and achieved a balance between dramatic and musical time in the opera, which became the first great success of his Naples's period. It seems that Rossini chose the borrowed material according to the following criteria: (1) themes with similar dramatic function; (2) texts with similar metrical structure; and (3) identical tonal settings. Likewise the libretto of Elisabetta by Giovanni Schmidt is shown to have been modeled upon the play Il paggio di Leicester by Carlo Frederici (Naples, 1813), which was derived from an English play by Sophia Lee and not from a romance by Sir Walter Scott as asserted by previous biographers.

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Luiz Fernando Lopes