_Otello_ in the present day seems somewhat antiquated, and in some of the dramatic scenes the accent of passion is smothered beneath roulades and vocalistic ornaments of all kinds. But it contains some fine pieces, and the last act is full of beauty. Speaking once to a friend on the subject of his own operas, Rossini said that much of what he had written must in time pass out of fashion, but that he believed the second act of _William Tell_, the last act of _Otello_, and the whole of the _Barber of Seville_ would survive the rest.[8] _Il Barbiere_ is, indeed, as fresh now as when it was first written. Yet Paisiello's treatment of the same subject was found to be old-fashioned in a very few years--was in fact rendered so by the newness, the brightness, the youthful gaiety of Rossini's setting. Nothing more need be said in this volume of Rossini considered as a composer of comic opera. He cultivated every style, including the ancient style of _La Cenerentola_ which contains much comic with some serious music, and of _La Gazza Ladra_, which might well have been treated seriously throughout, though in some of the gravest situations of this work he is gay, in some of the severest, lively. _La Cenerentola_, like _Il Barbiere_, _La Gazza Ladra_, and so many successful operas by Rossini and other Italian composers (_L'Elisir_, _Linda_, _Lucrezia_, _La Favorita_, _Maria di Rohan_, for instance, of Donizetti, and the _Sonnambula_ and _Norma_ of Bellini), is based on a French play--the ingenious comedy of _Cendrillon_, by Etienne. Rossini composed it for the Teatro Valle of Rome, where it was produced for the carnival of 1817, on the 26th of December, 1816, precisely one year after _Torvaldo e Dorliska_, nearly one year after the _Barber_, a few months after _Otello_, and a few months before _La Gazza Ladra_. Between the winter of 1815 and the spring of 1816, Rossini composed and produced six operas, including the four admirable ones just named. The two others given with comparatively little success were _Torvaldo e Dorliska_ and _La Gazzetta_. _La Cenerentola_, on its first production, excited no such enthusiasm as _Il Barbiere_, but drew after its second or third representation. It is known to have been Rossini's custom when an opera of his fell, to pick up the pieces; and the score of _La Cenerentola_ was adorned throughout with fragments saved from the ruins of his earlier works; such as the wholly forgotten _Pietra del Paragone_ and the never-much-remembered _Turco in Italia_. To the former had originally belonged the drinking chorus, the burlesque proclamation of the Baron, and the duet "Un soave non so chè;" to the latter the duet "Zitti zitti," the sestet and the stretta of the finale.