A masterpiece in a hurry "I believed that the Venetians would think I was crazy after hearing my operas. Now it turns out that they are even crazier than I am," was Rossini's comment on the sensational success of his dramma giocoso L'Italiana in Algeri at its premiere at the Teatro San Benedetto in May 1813. The 21-year-old already had some experience as an opera composer, having written five operas in 1812 alone However, he had experienced his breakthrough only a few months earlier with Tancredi at Venice's Teatro La Fenice, a success that was repeated four weeks later in Ferrara. When Rossini returned to Venice from there, he was already impatiently awaited by the impresario Cesare Gallo, who had run into difficulties due to the delay of a planned premiere and asked Rossini for help. The libretto L'Italiana in Algeri by Angelo Anelli, which had already been set once before, offered itself as material, especially since oriental material promised a sure success since Napoleon's Egyptian expedition. (The opera's plot, incidentally, is said to be based on a true incident, the story of a Milanese woman kidnapped by pirates who was allowed to return home from the court of the Bey of Algiers in 1808) According to the Venetian Giornale, Rossini composed the opera in 27 days; the correspondent of the Leipzig Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung reported that the composer told him that he had needed 18 days for the Italiana. In any case, haste was the order of the day; there was little more than a month between Rossini's return from Ferrara and the premiere, and in that time the work also had to be rehearsed.