The last accounts of Rossini, if we are to credit the pleasant stories told of him by the Parisian wit, Louis Huart, are highly characteristic of the great maestro. The following canard is one of the most veritable and amusing:
"The newspapers announce that Rossini has shut himself up at Bologna with the celebrated tenor Donzelli, and that they pass their days in rehearsing a new opera, of which Rossini is finishing the score. After the sea-serpent, I know of no story which returns more periodically than the announcement of a new opera by Rossini. It is now fifteen years since this pleasantry began to be invariably reproduced at the commencement of every winter, and always with the same success. One begins to meet in society a few Parisians who shrug their shoulders with an air of incredulity when you speak to them of the sea-serpent, but no one dares to evince the least skepticism touching the new opera of Rossini. We received this morning a letter from our correspondent at Bologna, and he furnishes us with details which explain the announcements in the newspapers.
"Rossini is living in rather a retired way just now; and only receives the regular visits of one person; there is an error, however, in the orthography of the appellation of this visitor. Instead of Donzelli, he is named Pastafrollo. He is no tenor he is a cook! Rossini, in company with Pastafrollo, is now busily occupied in endeavoring to discover a new way of dressing turbot. Rossini has invented, up to the present day, sixty-two different ways of dressing this fish, but he repeats to whoever will listen to him, that he will not die content until he has discovered a sixty-third method, which will satisfy him completely then he will divulge his secret, and have inscribed on the cartes of all the restaurants in Europe turbot à la Rossini. On that day, but that day only, Rossini will make up his mind to open his piano and compose a cantata in honor of fish in general, and turbot in particular. The passion of Rossini for cooking has been rendered more ardent from the fact that the family of this illustrious personage do all they can to cross him in it. The relatives and friends of Rossini wish to make him believe that it is unworthy of a musician, and more especially of a musician of his genius, to occupy himself with turbot; but Rossini replies, history in hand, that a whole senate once devoted a long sitting to find out what sauce would eat best with this fish. Rossini's family do not consider themselves beaten as yet, and they have organized a sort of cordon sanitaire round the house of the composer, to prevent the cooks from getting to him. Before this determination was arrived at, Bologna overflowed with chefs, who arrived from every part of Italy, to consult Rossini on the best methods to be employed in dressing salmon, skate, carp, eels, and gudgeons.
"This furnishes us with an explanation of the reason why Pastafrollo was forced to employ a stratagem in order to prevent his being stopped in the hall by the family of Rossini. Pastafrollo arrived at Bologna, under the name of Donzelli, and took care to have inscribed on his passport tenor instead of cook.
"We cannot conclude without giving expression to an earnest hope, that the conferences established between Rossini and Pastafrollo may give birth to the sixty-third mode of dressing turbot."
