La Gazza Ladra Melodramma in due Atti. Die diebische Elster Oper in zwei Aufzügen ... Klavierauszug ... Pr. 6 Rthlr. [Piano-vocal score]

Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel [PN 3158], 1820. Oblong folio. Modern half dark brown calf with marbled boards, rules and titling to spine gilt. 1f. (title), [1] (cast list and table of contents), 2-232 pp. Lithographed. Text in Italian and German.

With "Presso Gio. Ricordi Negoziante di Musica d'ogni genere" overpaste to title.

Some browning, foxing, soiling, small tears, and minor dampstaining to margins of first and last leaves; trimmed at upper margin. Second edition of the first version. Rognoni, p. 446, no. 21. Gossett p. 357.

La gazza ladra, to a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini after La pie voleuse by J.M.T. Badouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez, was first performed in Milan at the Teatro alla Scala on 31 May 1817.

"Musically, La gazza ladra is the finest of Rossini's several essays in the semiseria that stretch from L'equivoco stravagante (1811) to Matilde di Shabran (1821). In this instance, the work can be seen to derive in part from the French drama larmoyant, in part from the so-called 'rescue' opera. The opera deals with a wide range of social groupings, and conforms to the tradition of the happy ending, the heroine saved from execution at the eleventh hour, even though in the original French play the heroine dies on the gallows." Richard Osborne in Grove Music Online. (Inventory #: 26306)