The Fondazione Rossini tells the story

According to a recent report by the “Venice: Capital of Sustainability” Foundation, published in November 2025, the number of tourists visiting the lagoon city in a year stands at around 34,500,000. Whilst following the city’s most typical itineraries, most of them will certainly have found themselves strolling along Calle Larga XXII Marzo, that is, the final stretch of the main route between the Galleria dell’Accademia and Piazza San Marco. Drawn by the glint of the shop windows of the major international boutiques that line this street, very few will have paid attention to the names of the narrow side streets branching off from it. About halfway along, there is one that should not go unnoticed by opera lovers (and in particular by Rossini enthusiasts who flock to Pesaro in August): Calle del Teatro San Moisè. At the end of this narrow alley, in what is still today called the Corte del Teatro San Moisè, stood the theatre of the same name, of which only a commemorative plaque remains today. It was in this theatre, in November 1810, that the eighteen-year-old Gioachino Rossini made his debut; over the next three years, he would compose four further works for that venue, all belonging to the then ‘new’ and hugely successful genre of the farce.

But what exactly is a farce? Or, rather, what kind of performance was referred to by the term ‘farce’ in the period spanning the last decade of the 18th century and the first two decades of the 19th? A possible answer to this question can be found in the first issue of Teatro moderno applaudito (1796), a collection of successful plays published monthly in Venice. It states that the farce is nothing more than ‘a short play, consisting of one or two acts […] which may belong as much to the noble or middle genres as to the lower comic genre’. It is precisely this plurality of registers – high, middle and comic – that distinguishes it from the ancient farce in which, ‘as the encyclopaedist Marmontel says, all the rules of decency, verisimilitude and common sense are violated’. In short, the farce is nothing more than a miniature opera (almost always in one act), suitable for being presented in either a sentimental-pathetic (i.e. semi-serious) vein, or a comic, and sometimes buffoonish, one, for the staging of which few performers are required (often without the need for a chorus, whose function could easily be substituted by silent extras), limited stage sets, and small orchestral ensembles. Even structurally, the farce of this era exhibits certain conventional characteristics that underpin its nature as a work in sixteenths: framed by two extensive ensemble pieces (introduction and finale), a farce typically unfolds through an interweaving of arias and duets, at the centre of which stands a further ensemble piece, an intermediate musical and dramatic climax, and thus equivalent in function to a central finale of an opera in multiple acts.

As already mentioned, Rossini devoted himself to the farce between 1810 and 1813, composing five for the Teatro San Moisè in Venice: four comedies (La cambiale di matrimonio, L’occasione fa il ladro, La scala di seta, Il signor Bruschino) and one semi-serious, sentimental work (L’inganno felice); a sixth farce (Adina, also of a sentimental nature) would see the light of day in 1818, destined for the exotic stage of Lisbon. The programme for the Rossini Opera Festival 2026, featuring productions of L’occasione fa il ladro and La scala di seta, will therefore offer the opportunity to experience a programme of performances modelled on the seasons of the San Moisè in those years, restoring to the farce the central role that it would inevitably lose in the years to come.

Andrea Malnati

Published in : 23 March 2026