In the Italy of Rossini the _prima donna_ was the supreme arbiter of the lyric stage, and individual singers became the idols of kings and peoples. Such singers as Pasta, whose voice ranged from a to high d; the contraltos Isabella Colbran (Rossini’s first wife) and Malibran, who, despite the occasional ‘dead’ tones in her middle register, never failed of an ovation when she sang in Rome, Naples, Bologna, or Milan; Teresa Belloc, the dramatic mezzo-soprano, who was a favorite interpreter of Rossinian rôles; Fanny Persiani, so celebrated as a coloratura soprano that she was called _la piccola Pasta_; Henriette Sontag, most wonderful of Rosines; and Catalani, mistress of bravura; the tenors Rubini, Manuel Garcia, Nourrit; the basses Luigi Lablache, Levasseur, and Tamburini, these were the sovereigns of the days of Rossini and Meyerbeer. But their reign was not as absolute as Farinelli’s and Senesino’s in an earlier day. The new ideas which claimed that the singer existed for the sake of the opera, and not the opera for that of the singer, inevitably, though slowly, reacted in the direction of proportion and fitness. Rossini was the first to insist on writing out the coloratura cadenzas and fioriture passages, which the great singers still demanded, instead of leaving them to the discretion, or indiscretion, of the artists. It had been the custom to allow each soprano twenty measures at the end of her solo, during which she improvised at will. As a matter of fact, the cadenzas Rossini wrote for his _prime donne_ were quite as florid as any they might have devised, but they were at least consistent; and his determined stand in the matter sounded the death-knell of the old tradition that the opera was primarily a vehicle for the display of individual vocal virtuosity. He was also the first of the Italians to assign the leading parts to contraltos and basses; to make each dramatic scene one continuous musical movement; and to amplify and develop the concerted finale. These widespread reforms culminate, for _opera buffa_, in _Il barbiere di Siviglia_, and for _opera seria_ in _Semiramide_ and _Otello_.