Life of Rossini
Researched Bibliographic Dossier
Verified edition data and a musicological research note prepared specifically for this work.
- Title
- Life of Rossini
- Author
- Stendhal
- Original title
- Vie de Rossini
- Original publication
- Paris, 1824
- Edition
- Richard N. Coe revised English translation
- Publisher
- University of Washington Press
- Place
- Seattle
- Year
- 1972
- Extent
- xxiv + 566 pages
- Language
- English, translated from French
- Type
- Biography / contemporary opera criticism / reception history
- Notes
- Modern annotated English edition of Stendhal’s 1824 Rossini study.
SCOPE & CONTENT
Stendhal’s Rossini is less a conventional biography than a contemporary, argumentative portrait of the composer and the operatic culture around him. Written while Rossini was still the dominant European opera celebrity, it mixes description of works, theatrical gossip, aesthetic polemic and observations on singers, audiences and institutions.
RESEARCH VALUE
The factual narrative is not fully reliable and the work’s borrowings have long been discussed, yet that limitation is precisely why it is so useful for reception studies. It captures the language, passions and prejudices of Rossini’s own era in a way no later retrospective biography can reproduce.
BIBLIOGRAPHIC AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT
This dossier preserves concrete edition-level information wherever it can be verified and distinguishes original publication history from later translations or reissues. The record is designed to make title, author, volume, translator and publication variants independently searchable.
RESEARCH VALUE AND LIMITS
The record identifies what the volume can contribute to research and also flags the need to distinguish primary testimony, later editorial framing, reception history and modern factual authority. Existing valid catalogue metadata are never overwritten.
- Catalogue completeness
- 8 / 10 core bibliographic fields