Adelaide di Borgogna, ossia Ottone, re d’Italia (Adelaide of Burgundy, or Otto, King of Italy) is a two-act opera composed by Gioachino Rossini (with contributions by Michele Carafa) to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt. It was premièred at the Teatro Argentina in Rome on 27 December 1817. The libretto of the opera is based on an episode in medieval Italian history. Lotario II, King of Italy from 945 to 950, was poisoned by Berengario, who usurped the Italian crown. Lotario’s widow, Adelaide of Burgundy, took refuge in the fortress of Canossa (Canosso in the opera), to escape Berengario, who wanted to force her to marry his son Adelberto. In Canossa, Adelaide was protected by Attone (Iroldo in the opera) but, unable to resist the siege by Berengario, she asked for the intervention of Otto the Great (Ottone in Italian), the “Holy Roman Emperor” of Germany, offering to be his wife if he granted her the royal rights due to her. Otto crossed the Alps with his army, went down to Lombardy, freed Adelaide, married her, and took her with him to Germany. However, Giovanni Schmidt’s libretto contains some historical inaccuracies: the action is dated in 947, when in reality Lotario died in 950; moreover, the fortress of Canossa is said to be located near Lake Garda, but in reality it is on the Apennines of Reggio Emilia. The scene takes place partly in the fortress of Canossa, partly in Otto’s camp.

Armida is an opera in three acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto (dramma per musica) by Giovanni Schmidt, based on scenes from Gerusalemme liberata by Torquato Tasso.

Aureliano in Palmira is an operatic dramma serio in two acts written by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto in which the librettist was credited only by the initials "G. F. R." The libretto has generally been attributed to Felice Romani, but sometimes to the otherwise unknown Gian Francesco Romanelli. It has been suggested that the latter name may have resulted from a confusion of Romani with Luigi Romanelli, La Scala's house poet prior to Romani's appointment to the post. The story was based on the libretto by Gaetano Sertor for Pasquale Anfossi's 1789 opera Zenobia di Palmira and it centers on the rivalry between the Roman Emperor Aurelian and Prince Arsace of Persia over the beautiful Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. The act 1 duet between Zenobia and Arsace, "Se tu m'ami, o mia regina" (If you love me, oh my queen), was greatly admired by Stendhal. Although he had never seen a complete performance of Aureliano in Palmira, he heard the duet in a concert in Paris and described its music as "sublime" and one of the best duets that Rossini had written. Other music from this opera, particularly the overture, was later reused by Rossini in Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra and in The Barber of Seville. It premiered at La Scala in Milan on 26 December 1813.

Bianca e Falliero, ossia Il consiglio dei tre (English: Bianca and Falliero, or The Counsel of Three) is a two-act operatic melodramma by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani. The libretto was based on Antoine-Vincent Arnault's 1798 play Les Vénitiens, ou Blanche et Montcassin.

Ciro in Babilonia, ossia La caduta di Baldassare (Cyrus in Babylon, or The Downfall of Belshazzar) is an azione sacra in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Francesco Aventi. It was first performed at the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara during Lent, 1812. The exact date of the premiere is unknown but is believed to be 14 March. During Lent it was the custom for Italian opera houses either to close or to stage works on themes from the Bible. Ciro in Babilonia is one of two Lenten operas by Rossini (along with Mosè in Egitto) and is based on the Biblical story of the overthrow of the Babylonian king Belshazzar by the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great.

Demetrio e Polibio (Italian pronunciation: [deˈmɛːtrjo e ppoˈliːbjo]; Demetrius and Polybius) is a two-act operatic dramma serio by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Vincenzina Viganò-Mombelli. The opera was orchestrated for flute, oboes, clarinets, basson, horns, trumpets, and strings. Demetrio e Polibio was Rossini's first attempt at a full-scale opera, "assembled piecemeal" during his student days at the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna in 1806. Because it was commissioned by tenor Domenico Mombelli (whose wife wrote the libretto) and was performed privately by Mombelli and his two daughters, a performance which Rossini did not attend, it was not his first fully staged opera. The opera was not professionally staged until 18 May 1812, when it premiered at Rome's Teatro Valle.

La cambiale di matrimonio ([la kamˈbjale di matriˈmɔnjo]; English: The Bill of Marriage or The Marriage Contract although The Promissory of Marriage is a more precise translation) is a one-act operatic farsa comica by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. The libretto was based on the play by Camillo Federici (1791) and a previous libretto by Giuseppe Checcherini for Carlo Coccia's 1807 opera, Il matrimonio per lettera di cambio. The opera debuted on 3 November 1810 at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice. It had a run of thirteen performances at Teatro San Moisè. Composed in a few days when he was 18 years old, La cambiale di matrimonio was Rossini's first professionally performed opera (Demetrio e Polibio, composed in 1809, was his first composed although it was not performed until 1812). The overture, written when he was a student at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, is an important part of the modern concert repertoire. As was to become typical of his later career, the duet "Dunque io son" was later reused, to greater effect, in act 1 of The Barber of Seville.

Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra (Italian pronunciation: [elizaˈbɛtta reˈdʒiːna diŋɡilˈtɛrra]; Elizabeth, Queen of England) is a dramma per musica or opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giovanni Schmidt, from the play Il paggio di Leicester (Leicester's Page) by Carlo Federici, which itself "was derived from a novel The Recess (1785) by Sophia Lee." It was premiered at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on 4 October 1815 and was the first of nine operas which Rossini wrote for the San Carlo. Altogether, this was one of eighteen operas which he wrote during the time he spent in Naples. Rossini took melodies from other operas to compose Elisabetta, including the overture, first written for Aureliano in Palmira, which is more famous as the overture to The Barber of Seville. As Holden notes, with the re-uses of earlier music, "it is as if Rossini wished to present himself to the Neapolitan public by offering a selection of the best music from operas unlikely to have been revived in Naples." Some of Elisabetta's music was recycled in later operas and a part of Elisabetta's first aria was re-used by Rossini four months later in Rosina's aria "Una voce poco fa" in the opera The Barber of Seville.

Ermione (1819) is a tragic opera (azione tragica) in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, based on the play Andromaque by Jean Racine.

William Tell (French: Guillaume Tell; Italian: Guglielmo Tell) is a French-language opera in four acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell, which, in turn, drew on the William Tell legend. The opera was Rossini's last, although he lived for nearly 40 more years. Fabio Luisi said that Rossini planned for Guillaume Tell to be his last opera even as he composed it. The often-performed overture in four sections features a depiction of a storm and a vivacious finale, the "March of the Swiss Soldiers". Paris Opéra archivist Charles Malherbe discovered the original orchestral score of the opera in the hands of a second-hand bookseller, resulting in its being acquired by the Paris Conservatoire in 1898.

The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution (Italian: Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione [il barˈbjɛːre di siˈviʎʎa osˈsiːa liˈnuːtile prekautˈtsjoːne]) is an opera buffa (comic opera) in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's French comedy The Barber of Seville (1775). The premiere of Rossini's opera (under the title Almaviva, o sia L'inutile precauzione) took place on 20 February 1816 at the Teatro Argentina, Rome, with designs by Angelo Toselli. Rossini's Barber of Seville is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all "opere buffe". After two centuries, it remains a popular work.

Il signor Bruschino, ossia Il figlio per azzardo (Signor Bruschino, or The Accidental Son) is a one act operatic farce (farsa giocosa per musica) by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa, based upon the 1809 play Le fils par hasard, ou ruse et folie by René de Chazet and Maurice Ourry. The opera was first performed in Venice at the Teatro San Moisè on 27 January 1813. Between 1810 and 1813, the young Rossini composed five pieces for the Teatro San Moisè, beginning with La cambiale di matrimonio (Bill of Exchange of Marriage), his first opera, and ending with Il signor Bruschino. These farse were short pieces, popular in Venice at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. They were intimate, with a cast of five to eight singers, always including a pair of lovers, here Sofia and Florville, at least two comic parts, here Bruschino senior, Gaudenzio and Filiberto, and one or more minor roles, here Marianna, Bruschino junior and a policeman. The style called for much visual comedy improvised by the players, and often a compulsive linguistic ‘tic’. Here, Bruschino senior often repeats the phrase "Oh, it’s so hot!". As compared with many genres of opera, acting and comedic talent is more important relative to the required singing ability. Rossini's farces also have a significant sentimental element. Overall, it has been described as "a vivacious and fast-moving musical comedy, whose graceful score reveals traces still of Cimarosa and even Mozart." Il signor Bruschino is forward-looking in its use of new musical effects. For example, in the overture, the second violins are instructed to tap their bows on their music stands. This lighthearted, energetic overture is one of several by Rossini to have gained considerable importance in the modern concert repertoire.

Il turco in Italia (English: The Turk in Italy) is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani. It was a re-working of a libretto by Caterino Mazzolà set as an opera (with the same title) by the German composer Franz Seydelmann in 1788. An opera buffa, it was influenced by Mozart's Così fan tutte, which was performed at the same theatre shortly before Rossini's work. The strangely harmonized overture, though infrequently recorded, is one of the best examples of Rossini's characteristic style. An unusually long introduction displays an extended, melancholy horn solo with full orchestral accompaniment, before giving way to a lively, purely comic main theme.

Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro (The Journey to Reims, or The Hotel of the Golden Fleur-de-lis) is an operatic dramma giocoso, originally performed in three acts, by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Balocchi, based in part on the 1807 novel Corinne ou l'Italie by Germaine de Staël. Rossini's last opera in the Italian language (all of his later works were in French) premiered under the title Le voyage à Reims, ou l'Hôtel du Lys-d'Or. It was commissioned to celebrate the coronation of French King Charles X in Reims in May 1825 and has been acclaimed as one of Rossini's finest compositions. A demanding work, it requires 14 soloists (three sopranos, one contralto, two tenors, four baritones, and four basses). At its premiere, it was sung by the greatest voices of the day. Since the opera was written for a specific occasion, with a plot about European aristocrats, officers – and one poetess – en route to join in the French coronation festivities that the opera itself was composed for, Rossini never intended it to have a life beyond a few performances in Paris. He later re-used about half of the music in Le comte Ory. Il viaggio a Reims does not have an overture. Its so-called overture, derived from a set of dances in Le siège de Corinthe (1826), one of which Rossini had reworked from the dances in the finale to Il viaggio a Reims, is a twentieth-century invention or an erroneous attribution. It was published in Milan, in 1938, in a revision by Giuseppe Piccioli, which was first performed in the Teatro alla Scala, on 5 November 1938, conducted by Richard Strauss. It was later also recorded repeatedly as the alleged overture of Il viaggio a Reims, until it was finally possible to reconstruct the original score of the opera. The attributed overture remains one of Rossini's most recorded works.

L'equivoco stravagante (Italian pronunciation: [leˈkwiːvoko stravaˈɡante]; The Curious Misunderstanding) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Gaetano Gasbarri. It was Rossini's first attempt at writing a full two-act opera.

L'inganno felice (The Fortunate Deception) is an opera in one act by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa. Rossini called his opera a farsa, although as Richard Osborne explains: "Its designation as a farsa is misleading in the light of its semiseria status as a romantic melodrama with buffo elements." The work has much in common with French Revolutionary operas such as Cherubini's Les deux journées. It was first performed at the Teatro San Moisè, Venice on 8 January 1812 and was an instant success.

L'italiana in Algeri (Italian pronunciation: [litaˈljaːna in alˈdʒɛːri]; The Italian Girl in Algiers) is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca. It premiered at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice on 22 May 1813. The music is characteristic of Rossini's style, remarkable for its fusion of sustained, manic energy with elegant, pristine melodies.

L’occasione fa il ladro, ossia Il cambio della valigia (English: Opportunity Makes a Thief, or The Exchanged Suitcase) is an opera (burletta per musica or farsa) in one act by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Prividali, based on Le prétendu par hasard, ou L’occasion fait le larron, an 1810 vaudeville by Eugène Scribe.

La cambiale di matrimonio ([la kamˈbjale di matriˈmɔnjo]; English: The Bill of Marriage or The Marriage Contract although The Promissory of Marriage is a more precise translation) is a one-act operatic farsa comica by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Gaetano Rossi. The libretto was based on the play by Camillo Federici (1791) and a previous libretto by Giuseppe Checcherini for Carlo Coccia's 1807 opera, Il matrimonio per lettera di cambio. The opera debuted on 3 November 1810 at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice. It had a run of thirteen performances at Teatro San Moisè. Composed in a few days when he was 18 years old, La cambiale di matrimonio was Rossini's first professionally performed opera (Demetrio e Polibio, composed in 1809, was his first composed although it was not performed until 1812). The overture, written when he was a student at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna, is an important part of the modern concert repertoire. As was to become typical of his later career, the duet "Dunque io son" was later reused, to greater effect, in act 1 of The Barber of Seville.

La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo ("Cinderella, or Goodness Triumphant") is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the libretti written by Charles-Guillaume Étienne for the opera Cendrillon with music by Nicolas Isouard (first performed Paris, 1810) and by Francesco Fiorini for Agatina, o la virtù premiata with music by Stefano Pavesi (first performed Milan, 1814). All these operas are versions of the fairy tale Cendrillon by Charles Perrault. Rossini's opera was first performed in Rome's Teatro Valle on 25 January 1817. In this variation of the fairy tale, the wicked stepmother is replaced by a stepfather, Don Magnifico. The Fairy Godmother is replaced by Alidoro, a philosopher and tutor to the Prince. Cinderella is identified not by a glass slipper but by her silver bracelet. The supernatural elements that traditionally characterize the Cinderella story were removed from the libretto simply for ease of staging. Rossini composed La Cenerentola when he was 25 years old, following the success of The Barber of Seville the year before. La Cenerentola, which he completed in a period of three weeks, is considered to have some of his finest writing for solo voice and ensembles.

La donna del lago (English: The Lady of the Lake) is an opera composed by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola (whose verses are described as "limpid" by one critic) based on the French translation of The Lady of the Lake, a narrative poem written in 1810 by Sir Walter Scott, whose work continued to popularize the image of the romantic Scottish Highlands. Scott's basic story has been noted as coming from "the hint of an incident stemming from the frequent custom of James V, the King of Scotland, of walking through the kingdom in disguise". It was the first of the Italian operas to be based on Scott's romantic works, and marked the beginning of romanticism in Rossini's work. Scott was "deeply influential in the development of Italian romantic opera" to the extent that by 1840 (barely 20 years after this opera), there were 25 Italian operas based on his works, the most famous being Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor of 1835. Others in German, French and English followed. Written for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, this was the seventh of nine operas which Rossini wrote for that house between 1815 and 1822. Although the première on 24 September 1819 was not a success, there followed many performances throughout major European venues (as well as being presented in Cuba and by major South American houses) until about 1860, after which the opera disappeared until 1958. In modern times, performances have been given fairly frequently.

La gazza ladra (Italian pronunciation: [la ˈɡaddza ˈlaːdra], The Thieving Magpie) is a opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, with a libretto by Giovanni Gherardini based on La pie voleuse by Théodore Baudouin d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. The Thieving Magpie's overture uses snare drums to evoke the image of the opera's main subject: a devilishly clever, thieving magpie. Rossini wrote quickly, and La gazza ladra was no exception. A 19th-century biography quotes him as saying that the conductor of the premiere performance locked him in a room at the top of La Scala the day before the premiere with orders to complete the opera's still unfinished overture. He was under the guard of four stagehands whose job it was to toss each completed page out the window to the copyist below.

La gazzetta, ossia Il matrimonio per concorso (The Newspaper, or The marriage contest) is an opera buffa by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was by Giuseppe Palomba after Carlo Goldoni's play Il matrimonio per concorso of 1763. The opera satirizes the influence of newspapers on people's lives. There is critical disagreement as to its success, although the New England Conservatory's notes for their April 2013 production state that the opera "was an immediate hit, and showed Rossini at his comic best".

La pietra del paragone (The Touchstone) is an opera, or melodramma giocoso, in two acts by Gioachino Rossini, to an original Italian libretto by Luigi Romanelli.

La scala di seta (The Silken Ladder or Die seidene Leiter) is an operatic farsa comica in one act by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa. Adapted from L'échelle de soie by Eugène de Planard. It was first performed in Venice, Italy, at the Teatro San Moisè on 9 May 1812. The overture has been frequently recorded and continues to be featured in the modern concert repertoire. From 1810 to 1813, the young Rossini composed four Italian farse, beginning with La cambiale di matrimonio (The Bill of Marriage), his first opera, and ending with Il Signor Bruschino. These types of short pieces were popular in Venice at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. The pieces were intimate, with a cast of five to seven singers, always including a pair of lovers, at least two comic parts, and one or two other minor roles. The style called for much visual comedy improvised by the players. As compared to many genres of opera, acting and comedic talent is more important relative to the required singing ability. Rossini's farces also have a significant sentimental element.

Le comte Ory (Count Ory) is a comic opera written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X. The French libretto was by Eugène Scribe and Charles-Gaspard Delestre-Poirson adapted from a comedy they had first written in 1817. The work is ostensibly a comic opera in that the story is humorous, even farcical. However, it was devised for the Opéra rather than for the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique and there are structural inconsistencies with the contemporary opéra comique genre: whereas the latter consists of relatively short lyrical numbers and spoken dialogue, Le comte Ory consists of "highly developed, even massive musical forms linked by accompanied recitative". Although the opera contains some of Rossini's most colorful orchestral writing, the quaint, brief overture is oddly restrained and unassuming, ending with a whisper of pizzicato strings.

L'assedio di Corinto (English: The Siege of Corinth; in its original French version Le siège de Corinthe), is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini). The opera was originally set to a French libretto by Luigi Balocchi and Alexandre Soumet, and was based on the reworking of some of the music from Rossini's 1820 opera for Naples, Maometto II, the Italian libretto of which was written by Cesare della Valle. Le siège de Corinthe was Rossini's first opera written in French, and was first given at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra on 9 October 1826. It then became popular across Europe in its 1828 Italian translation, L’assedio di Corinto, by Calisto Bassi.

Maometto II (or Maometto secondo) is an 1820 opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Cesare della Valle. Set in the 1470s during a time of war between the Turks and Venetians, the work was commissioned by the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. Della Valle based his libretto on his earlier play Anna Erizo. The name of the title character, Maometto II, refers to the real-life Ottoman Sultan and conqueror of Constantinople Mehmed II, who lived from 1432 to 1481. Regarded "in some ways [as his] most ambitious opera" and as "the best of Rossini's Neapolitan operas", Maometto II failed to find an audience in Naples and, "to help ensure [its] success in Venice and Paris, he smoothed out the most audacious elements of the score". Venice first saw it on 22 December 1822 and then, translated into French and changed significantly, it was presented as Le siège de Corinthe in 1826. Until the preparation of the critical editions of Maometto II, the composer's original intentions remained obscure. The introduction to an early version prepared by musicologists Philip Gossett and Patricia Brauner (along with Claudio Scimone) notes some of the difficulties of determining what Rossini had intended: Extraordinary for its dramatic power and the nobility of its musical content, Maometto II is also an opera that poses many textual problems, since Rossini's successive revisions were made directly in the autograph score. Using copies of the score dating back to the original productions of each of these versions, the critical edition reconstructs the text of the first version (Naples, 1820), which reflects the composer's original intentions. A new critical edition was prepared under the supervision of Philip Gossett and edited by Dutch scholar Hans Schellevis. The first performances which used it were given by The Santa Fe Opera during its 2012 season and the German company, Bärenreiter, released the score for rentals in 2013.

Matilde di Shabran (full title: Matilde di Shabran, o sia Bellezza e Cuor di ferro; English: Matilde of Shabran, or Beauty and Ironheart) is an opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Jacopo Ferretti after François-Benoît Hoffman’s libretto for Méhul’s Euphrosine (1790, Paris) and J. M. Boutet de Monvel's play Mathilde. The opera was first performed in Rome at the Teatro Apollo, 24 February 1821 conducted by the violinist Niccolo Paganini. The premiere was followed by a street brawl "between Rossini's admirers and his detractors."

Mosè in Egitto (Italian: [moˈzɛ in eˈdʒitto]; "Moses in Egypt") is a three-act opera written by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, which was based on a 1760 play by Francesco Ringhieri, L'Osiride. It premièred on 5 March 1818 at the recently reconstructed Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Italy. In 1827 Rossini revised and greatly enlarged the work to a four-act French libretto: Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le passage de la Mer Rouge (pronounced [mɔ.iz e faʁaɔ̃ u lə pasaʒ d(ə) la mɛʁ ʁuʒ]; "Moses and Pharaoh, or The Crossing of the Red Sea"). This was written by Luigi Balocchi and Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy. The première took place in the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera on 26 March that year. Riccardo Muti and many scholars consider Moïse et Pharaon, along with Guillaume Tell, to be among Rossini's greatest achievements: I prefer it because Rossini himself preferred it. Don't get me wrong. Mosè in Egitto is a wonderful opera, but it remains very much a mere sketch for Moïse et Pharaon. And it's not just me who says that, but the great Rossini himself.

Mosè in Egitto (Italian: [moˈzɛ in eˈdʒitto]; "Moses in Egypt") is a three-act opera written by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola, which was based on a 1760 play by Francesco Ringhieri, L'Osiride. It premièred on 5 March 1818 at the recently reconstructed Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Italy. In 1827 Rossini revised and greatly enlarged the work to a four-act French libretto: Moïse et Pharaon, ou Le passage de la Mer Rouge (pronounced [mɔ.iz e faʁaɔ̃ u lə pasaʒ d(ə) la mɛʁ ʁuʒ]; "Moses and Pharaoh, or The Crossing of the Red Sea"). This was written by Luigi Balocchi and Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy. The première took place in the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opera on 26 March that year. Riccardo Muti and many scholars consider Moïse et Pharaon, along with Guillaume Tell, to be among Rossini's greatest achievements: I prefer it because Rossini himself preferred it. Don't get me wrong. Mosè in Egitto is a wonderful opera, but it remains very much a mere sketch for Moïse et Pharaon. And it's not just me who says that, but the great Rossini himself.

Otello is an opera in three acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa. The work, which premiered in December 1816, is based on a French adaptation of the story (Othello, ou le More de Venise by Jean-François Ducis, 1792), not Shakespeare's play Othello as neither Rossini nor his librettist knew the English drama. The plot of the libretto differs greatly from Shakespeare's play in that it takes place wholly in Venice, not mainly on Cyprus, and the dramatic conflict develops in a different manner. The role of Iago is much less diabolical than Shakespeare's play or Verdi's 1887 opera Otello, which was also based on it. Shakespeare derived his play from the story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. In further contrast, the role of Roderigo, a sub-plot in Shakespeare and Verdi, is very prominent in Rossini's version—some of the most difficult and brilliant music being assigned to the character Rodrigo. The roles of Otello, Iago, and Rodrigo are all composed for the tenor voice. Rossini's Otello is an important milestone in the development of opera as musical drama. It provided Verdi with a benchmark for his own adaptations of Shakespeare. A 1999 Opera Rara CD of the opera includes an alternative happy ending, a common practice with drama and opera at that period of the 19th century.

Ricciardo e Zoraide (Ricciardo and Zoraide) is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Francesco Berio di Salsa. The text is based on cantos XIV and XV of Il Ricciardetto, an epic poem by Niccolò Forteguerri.

Semiramide (Italian pronunciation: [semiˈraːmide]) is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto by Gaetano Rossi is based on Voltaire's tragedy Semiramis, which in turn was based on the legend of Semiramis of Assyria. The opera was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on 3 February 1823. Semiramide was Rossini's final Italian opera and according to Richard Osborne, "could well be dubbed Tancredi Revisited". As in Tancredi, Rossi's libretto was based on a Voltaire tragedy. The music took the form of a return to vocal traditions of Rossini's youth, and was a melodrama in which he "recreated the baroque tradition of decorative singing with unparalleled skill". The ensemble-scenes (particularly the duos between Arsace and Semiramide) and choruses are of a high order, as is the orchestral writing, which makes full use of a large pit. After this splendid work, one of his finest in the genre, Rossini turned his back on Italy and moved to Paris. Apart from Il viaggio a Reims, which is still in Italian, his last operas were either original compositions in French or extensively reworked adaptations into French of earlier Italian operas. Musicologist Rodolfo Celletti sums up the importance of Semiramide by stating that it "was the last opera of the great Baroque tradition: the most beautiful, the most imaginative, possibly the most complete; but also, irremediably, the last."

Sigismondo is an operatic 'dramma' in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Maria Foppa. The opera was not a success and Rossini later re-used some of its music in Elisabetta, regina d'Inghilterra, The Barber of Seville, and Adina.

Tancredi is a melodramma eroico (opera seria or heroic opera) in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi (who was also to write Semiramide ten years later), based on Voltaire's play Tancrède (1760). The opera made its first appearance at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice on 6 February 1813, less than a month after the premiere of his previous opera Il signor Bruschino. The overture, borrowed from La pietra del paragone, is a popular example of Rossini's characteristic style and is regularly performed in concert and recorded. Considered by Stendhal, Rossini's earliest biographer, to be "high amongst the composer's masterworks", and describing it as "a genuine thunderbolt out of a clear, blue sky for the Italian lyric theatre," his librettist Gaetano Rossi notes that, with it, "Rossini rose to glory". Richard Osborne proclaims it to be "his fully fledged opera seria and it established him, more or less instantly, as Italy's leading composer of contemporary opera." Although the original version had a happy ending (as required by the opera seria tradition), soon after the Venice premiere, Rossini—who was more of a Neo-classicist than a Romantic, notes Servadio—had the poet Luigi Lechi rework the libretto to emulate the original tragic ending by Voltaire. In this new ending, presented at the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara on 21 March 1813, Tancredi wins the battle but is mortally wounded, and only then does he learn that Amenaide never betrayed him. Argirio marries the lovers in time for Tancredi to die in his wife's arms. As has been stated by Philip Gossett and Patricia Brauner, it was the rediscovery of the score of this ending in 1974 (although elsewhere Gossett provides evidence that it was 1976) that resulted in the version which is usually performed today.

Torvaldo e Dorliska is an opera semiseria in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini, based on the novel/memoir Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas (1787–1790) by the revolutionary Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvray, whose work was the source of the Lodoïska libretto set by Luigi Cherubini (1791), and Lodoiska set by Stephen Storace (1794), and Simon Mayr (1796). Torvaldo e Dorliska is a rescue opera with an eventual happy ending. The inclusion of buffo roles is the reason for its designation as a 'semiserio' work, similar to Rossini's La gazza ladra.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. While he gained most of his fame for his 39 operas, he also wrote many pieces of chamber music , piano, and some sacred music. He set new standards for both comic and serious opera before retiring from large-scale composition while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity. Born in Pesaro to parents who were both musicians (his father a trumpeter, his mother a singer), Rossini began to compose by the age of twelve and was educated at music school in Bologna. His first opera was performed in Venice in 1810 when he was 18 years old. In 1815 he was engaged to write operas and manage theatres in Naples. In the period 1810–1823, he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage that were performed in Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples and elsewhere; this productivity necessitated an almost formulaic approach for some components (such as overtures) and a certain amount of self-borrowing. During this period he produced his most popular works, including the comic operas L'italiana in Algeri, Il barbiere di Siviglia (known in English as The Barber of Seville) and La Cenerentola, which brought to a peak the opera buffa tradition he inherited from masters such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. He also composed opera seria works such as Tancredi, Otello and Semiramide. All of these attracted admiration for their innovation in melody, harmonic and instrumental colour, and dramatic form. In 1824 he was contracted by the Opéra in Paris, for which he produced an opera to celebrate the coronation of Charles X, Il viaggio a Reims (later cannibalised for his first opera in French, Le comte Ory), revisions of two of his Italian operas, Le siège de Corinthe and Moïse, and in 1829 his last opera, Guillaume Tell. Rossini's withdrawal from opera for the last 40 years of his life has never been fully explained; contributory factors may have been ill-health, the wealth his success had brought him, and the rise of spectacular grand opera under composers such as Giacomo Meyerbeer. From the early 1830s to 1855, when he left Paris and was based in Bologna, Rossini wrote relatively little. On his return to Paris in 1855 he became renowned for his musical salons on Saturdays, regularly attended by musicians and the artistic and fashionable circles of Paris, for which he wrote the entertaining pieces Péchés de vieillesse. Guests included Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Giuseppe Verdi, Meyerbeer, and Joseph Joachim. Rossini's last major composition was his Petite messe solennelle (1863).

Zelmira (Italian pronunciation: [dzelˈmiːra]) is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Andrea Leone Tottola. Based on the French play, Zelmire by de Belloy, it was the last of the composer's Neapolitan operas. Stendhal called its music Teutonic, comparing it with La clemenza di Tito but remarking: "...while Mozart would probably, had he lived, have grown completely Italian, Rossini may well, by the end of his career, have become more German than Beethoven himself!"