Some guys have all the luck -- and some composers, too. Others, instead, just cannot catch a break. Poor Giovanni Paisiello, a genius of Mozartean -- better yet, Beethovenian proportions -- who once counted Napoleon among his biggest fanboys (he commissioned Maestro Paisiello the music for his Coronation) and has now ended up, more or less, as a footnote -- the guy who wrote "The Other Barbiere di Siviglia", and lived to see the infinitely richer, much younger & more successful Rossini take his deliciously Ancien Régime opera and turn it into something completely different (Opera Chic is not saying that Paisiello's Barbiere is better than Rossini's -- she's not insane -- not that much at least; we just think that Paisiello's work is definitely on the same level of talent as the big boys' stuff).
Part of Paisiello's curse, of course, lies also in his reputation as some sort of Opera Buffa hack; when, in fact, his supreme masterpiece is instead a tragedy, the unspeakably complex and beautiful Fedra. And his religious -- and keyboard -- works are also unjustly forgotten.
The good Antonio over at the indispensable Gazzetta Belcantista comes to the rescue: here's a great post on Paisiello complete with juicy Rapidshare goodness -- an entire Barbiere.