Rossini began by playing a trick on the Neapolitan audience; for in lieu of an original composition, he prefaced _Elisabetta_ with an overture which he had written the year before at Milan for _Aureliano in Palmira_--and which he was to offer to the Romans a year afterwards as overture to _Il Barbiere_. The Neapolitans were delighted with the overture; but it has been surmised that had they known it to have been originally composed for an opera which had failed at Milan, they would not, perhaps, have applauded it so much. The first piece in the opera was, as Stendhal tells us, a duet for Leicester and his young wife, in the minor, which, says Stendhal, was "very original." The finale to the first act, in which the leading motives of the overture were introduced, called forth enthusiastic applause. "All the emotions of serious opera with no tedious intervals between:" such, Stendhal (or Carpani) informs us, was the phrase in which the general verdict of the Neapolitan public was expressed. Mademoiselle Colbran's greatest success, however, was not achieved until the second act where, on the rising of the curtain, Elisabetta, attired in an historical costume--warranted authentic and ordered expressly from London by a fanatical English admirer--had a grand scena. The concerted finale to this act was another triumph both for the composer and for the singers. _Elisabetta_ made but little mark beyond the frontiers of Italy. It contains much beautiful music; but the distribution of characters is not all that could be desired. Thus the parts of Norfolk, and of Leicester, are both given to tenors; though Norfolk as a wicked personage should have been represented by a baritone or bass. The bass singer, however, was still kept in the background; and at the San Carlo, though there were three admirable tenors--Davide, Nozzari, and Garcia,--there was no bass singer capable of taking a leading part. But for Rossini the bass singer might have remained indefinitely in obscurity. Gradually, however, he was brought to the front, not only in comic operas, where the Italians already tolerated him, but also in serious operas like _Otello_ and _Semiramide_, and in half-character works such as _Cenerentola_ and _La Gazza Ladra_. _Elisabetta_ was the first Italian opera in which recitative was accompanied by the stringed quartet in place of the double bass and piano previously employed.