Google doodles for Leap Day and Gioachino Rossini

Google is back from the drawing board with a rare 2-in-1 Doodle. Today being February 29th, a once in four years occassion, Google’s celebrating the Leap Year day as well as the birthday of Italian composer, Gioachino Rossini. The Doodle presents four frogs, the symbol of Leap Years (get it?), who are inspired from the characters of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”. The opera was written in 1816 and was one of his most performed operas. One frog is at the piano, the soprano frog is leaping, the barber frog is Figaro and the frog being shaved is Count Almaviva. The characters are based on the works of French playwright, Pierre Beaumarchais and “The Barber of Seville” is part one of the Figaro trilogy.

Google sings Figaro!

Gioachino Rossini was born on the 29th of February, 1792 in Pesaro on the Adriatic side of Italy. His most famous works, include “The Barber of Seville”, “La Cenerentola” (Cinderella) and “William Tell” (if you’ve heard the William Tell Overture, he wrote that). Because his melodies had song-like features to them, he was nicknamed “The Italian Mozart”. His first opera, “The Marriage Contract"was produced in Venice, when he was 18 years old. He shot to fame when he was 20, particularly for two operas, “Tancredi” and “The Italian Girl in Algiers”.

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After the success of “The Barber of Seville”, Rossini scored a meeting with the by then deaf Beethoven, who wrote to him saying, “Ah, Rossini. So you’re the composer of The Barber of Seville. I congratulate you. It will be played as long as Italian opera exists. Never try to write anything else but opera buffa; any other style would do violence to your nature.”  As was common practice between opera composers meeting deadlines at the time, Rossini plagiarized freely from himself. Rossini retired in 1829 and died from pneumonia on the 13th of November, 1868.