About the work
L'occasione fa il ladro is a farsa (originally billed as a "burletta per musica") in one act by Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Luigi Prividali, based on the French vaudeville "Le prétendu par hasard, ou L'occasion fait le larron" (1810) by Eugène Scribe. It premiered on 24 November 1812 at the Teatro San Moisè in Venice.
Plot
During a stay at an inn, Don Parmenione accidentally swaps his luggage with that of Count Alberto. Finding a woman's portrait inside, he mistakes it for Alberto's fiancée and passes himself off as the count to marry her. Meanwhile the real fiancée, Marchesina Berenice, swaps places with her maid to test Alberto's sincerity. Parmenione eventually confesses his deception — and discovers the portrait was never of the fiancée at all, but of Alberto's sister.
Cultural significance
The opera is the fourth of the five one-act farse Rossini wrote for Venice between 1810 and 1813, and was the most frequently performed of them during his lifetime, though it was largely neglected after his death. The autograph score is held at the Paris Conservatoire.