Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra

Opera by Gioachino Rossini (libretto by G Schmidt), first produced at the Teatro San Carlo, Naples, Italy, on 4 October 1815. The overture was taken from his earlier opera Aureliano in Palmira and afterwards used for his Il barbiere di Siviglia. It tells how Elizabeth I imprisons the Earl of Leicester when he marries Mathilde, daughter of Mary Queen of Scots. She later releases him and survives an assassination attempt by the treacherous Norfolk.