Conductor, E. Godfrey Brown
James Johnston (tenor)
Harry Dyson (flute)
THE original overture to The Barber of Seville is said to have been lost. It has also been said that Rossini never wrote one. In any case, the overture always played in front of the opera is the one to be played this afternoon. It was first written for an opera called Aureliano in Palmira, which was not successful. Rossini, either from indolence or because he disliked waste, then used the same overture for a much more successful opera, Elisabeth, Queen of England, And a year later, needing urgently an overture to replace one that had been lost, or that had never existed, he took from Queen Elisabeth what he had given her a year before, and presented it to Rosina with complete nonchalance. The music of the Aureliano overture fitted The Barber of Seville as though written for it.