"Accept my sincere compliments, (Signed) "GIOACHINO ROSSINI." On receiving this letter the manager withdrew the well-named _Curioso Accidente_, in connection with which no accident was more curious than that of its production. It had already been played once; and at this single representation much success had been obtained by a trio in the buffo style for men's voices borrowed from _La Pietra del Paragone_, and a duet for soprano and contralto from _Aureliano in Palmira_. It is not so easy as it may at first appear to decide which deserves to be considered the first of Rossini's operas. The opera or operetta of _La Cambiale di Matrimonio_ (1810), was the first produced on the stage; and _L'Inganno Felice_ (1812), was the first which made a marked impression, and which, played throughout Italy, at Paris, and at Vienna, gained for its author something like a European reputation. But the first opera that Rossini ever composed was _Demetrio e Polibio_, which, written in the spring of 1809 when he was just seventeen years old, was produced at Rome--though not until it had undergone a process of retouching--in 1812. An Italian officer, whom Stendhal met at Como one night when _Demetrio e Polibio_ was to be represented--or perhaps it was the Abbé Carpani who met him; in any case the story is to be found in Stendhal's Life of Rossini--gave this curious account of the Mombelli family, all of whom were connected in one way or another with the performance of Rossini's earliest opera. "The Mombellis Company," he said, "consists of a single family. Of the two daughters, one, who is always dressed as a man, takes the part of the musico (or sopranist); that is Marianna. The other one, Esther, who has a voice of greater extent though less even, less perfectly sweet, is the prima donna. In _Demetrio e Polibio_ the old Mombelli, who was once a celebrated tenor takes the part of the King. That of the chief of the conspirators will be filled by a person called Olivieri, who has long been attached to Madame Mombelli, the mother, and who, to be useful to the family, takes utility parts on the stage and acts in the house as cook and major domo. Without being pretty, the Mombellis have pleasing faces. But they are ferociously virtuous, and it is supposed that the father, who is an ambitious man, wishes to get them married." Madame Mombelli, moreover, had written the libretto, while the old Mombelli--once a "celebrated tenor" and still "so ambitious" as to wish to see his daughters legitimately married--had from among his plentiful reminiscences given Rossini ideas for melodies. Not only did the company, in the words of Stendhal's officer, consist of a single family; this family included, moreover, among its members, the composer himself, who was somehow related to the Mombellis.