Gioachino Rossini is one of the most regularly-performed opera composers, which is mainly due to the epic amount of awesome music that he wrote.
- By far Rossini's most popular opera is The Barber of Seville, with especially famous moments including its lively overture
(frequently used in animated and live-action films and television, such as the Warner Bros. short Rabbit of Seville and the closing credits to The Beatles' film Help!) and "Largo al factotum", the introductory aria of the opera's cheerful protagonist, Figaro; the passage halfway through when he sings his own name over and over is one of the most widely referenced and parodied moments in opera. - The overture to The Thieving Magpie is one of Rossini's best, and full of Standard Snippets (most notably the easy-going clarinet theme from the centre section). It was used to great effect for several of the fight scenes in A Clockwork Orange.
- Rossini's most famous single composition in many countries is the overture to William Tell, even if many people who live in those countries are unable to hear it without imagining The Lone Ranger and Silver galloping across the desert. And there's so much more to the overture than just the "Lone Ranger theme", which is the fourth of four major sections, the others including a solemn opening prominently featuring a solo cello, a terrifying musical storm, and a gentle pastoral (the second most familiar theme from the overture).
- Act 1 of Rossini's Plautine farce L'italiana in Algeri culminates with everyone singing an epic septet about what massive headaches the Contrived Coincidence has given them.
