According to the author of Le Rossiniane, “Eduardo e Cristina” was little more than Rossini’s two previous operas, “Ricciardo e Zoraide” and “Ermione,” in another shape. The manager of the San Benedetto Theatre at Venice had engaged Rossini to furnish him with a work for the Spring season. But urgent private affairs detained the composer at Naples, which he could not prevail upon himself to quit until about ten days before the day fixed for the production of his new and original work.
It is true that Rossini had in the meanwhile forwarded a good many pieces of music to the expectant manager. The words were not always the same as those which the manager had forwarded to him, but no one, not even the manager, pays much attention to the words of an opera, and the Venetian impresario was only too glad to get the music.
Nine days before the day of performance Rossini arrived in Venice to give the finishing touches to his work, see it through the rehearsals, and direct the first representation.
The opera was immensely applauded; but after the first two or three pieces the audience all remarked a Neapolitan merchant in the pit who seemed to know the work by heart, and anticipated the vocalists in singing the principal melodies.
His neighbours asked him how he came to have heard the new music.
“New music?” replied the merchant; “it is a mixture of ‘Ricciardo e Zoraide’ and ‘Ermione,’ produced at Naples six months ago. The only thing new is the title. Rossini has taken the most beautiful phrase from the duet in ‘Ricciardo,’ and turned it into a cavatina for your new opera. Even the words are the same. ‘Ah nati in ver noi siamo.’”
During the entre-acte, and while the ballet was going on, the story of the Neapolitan merchant, after being told in the theatrical café, soon spread in the theatre itself. The local dilettanti, who had been vying with one another in sounding the praises of the work, were disgusted to find that it had not been written for them at all, but had been composed for Naples.
However, the public liked the music, and yielding only to their own impressions, applauded it. The impresario on the other hand was bound to be seriously annoyed, and said that Rossini had shamefully deceived him, had ruined him, and so on. Rossini answered that he had promised the manager music which would be applauded; that his music had been and would continue to be applauded, and that applause, above all from the managerial point of view, was the one thing to be considered.
The manager’s reply to this sophism has not been preserved.