The Thievish Magpie

"The Thieving Magpie" is a melodrama in two acts by Rossini written in 1817. It is best known for the overture. Rossini wrote quickly, and this opera was no exception. A 19th-century biography quotes him as saying that the conductor of the premiere performance locked him in a room 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.
The basic story is that a wealthy landowner’s son is in love with the family servant girl. A cunning magpie steals a silver spoon and the girl is blamed and sentenced to death. After a lot of singing and over-the-top acting the spoon is found and the girl is saved just as the public execution is about to start. Hooray!
The band will not be singing.
Just an aside about Magpies. The European Magpie upon which this story is based is not related to the Australian Magpie at all and in fact is more like a black and white crow with the crow’s tendency to nick shiny things.
Played here by Campbelltown City Band, Adelaide, South Australia and conducted by Al Kidney