Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Google Salutes Gioachino Rossini's birthday with leaping frogs

Google pulled an additional one out of their magic doodle bag, with this one having the added advantage of commemorating two events together. The leap year frogs (who have featured in doodles on two prior occasions) make a recurrence, and we see them perform to the “Barber of Seville” composed by Gioachino Rossini. Because, of course, it is also the 220th anniversary of Rossini’s birth.

While the leap years and leap days are usually linked with frogs, the leaping ambhibians, the Google doodle on February 29 has a number of frogs, all four of them.

The doodle is motivated by Gioachino Antonio Rossini's famous 1816 comic opera The Barber of Seville (Il barbiere di Siviglia), one of the most performed operas. Of the four frogs in the scene, one is at the piano and the soprano is the only one leaping. The barber frog is Figaro and the frog getting a shear is Count Almaviva (Characters created by French playright Pierre Beaumarchais and The Barber of Seville is one of the three Figaro plays penned by him).


Rossini’s other famous operas include William Tell (1829), Semiramide (1823) and Cinderella (1817). Rossini was born on 29 February 1792 in Pesaro, Italy, and died on Nov. 13, 1868.

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