Paisiello and "Il Barbiere di Siviglia"

French playwright Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, 1732-1799, lived an exciting life but is today best known as the author of the play Barberaren in Sevilla (1775), which deals with the sevillan hairdresser Figaro, who at the middle of the 18th century gets employment Count Almaviva's household. The first opera version based on Beaumarchais' comedy about the Spanish barber was written by Giovanni Paisiello with libretto by Giuseppe Petrosellini. Premiere on September 26, 1782 for the Russian Imperial Court in St. Petersburg. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was inspired by Beaumarchais play and maybe of Paisiello's Opera Comica and composed Figaro's wedding with the libretto of Lorenzo da Ponte in just six weeks. The performance took place at the Wiener Burgtheater on May 1, 1786. Gioacchino Rossini composed also an opera comica called the Barber in Seville with libretto by Cesare Sterbini in January 1816. The opera was also based on the Beaumarchais' comedy and premiered at Teatro Argentina in Rome on February 20, when 1816 Rossini himself was dirigente. The premiere became a failure, and was considered to be just a plagiarism of Giovanni Paisiello's opera. The history is repeating, a northern italian that plagiarizes a neapolitan.