BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Wednesday, August 7, 1822

The Vienna Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung today laments at col.497 that even though the Rossini Festival is over, Rossini’s operas cannot be escaped. “Even though it is reasonable to expect that, after the Italian opera company’s departure, the operas which it has only recently performed with real perfection might be retired by the administration of the theater, it is not in their power to exercise this precautionary measure. Rossini’s operas have by now taken possession of the stages of Germany. Though it might be assumed that they would go through the usual period of limitations, the possession never passes over to other occupying composers. Parts of the public took hold of a lasting violence in favor of specially preferred works, which become the necessary repertoire of the theater world, despite other compelling circumstances.”