 DATE: When the general drinks wine during the burning of the forest,  the music playing is the overture to Rossinis opera "La Gazza  Ladra" ("The Thieving Magpie"). Taken that the year stated in the  opening caption is 1796 and the caption in the next scene reads "15  years later", that would bring us to 1811. "La Gazza Ladra" was not  composed until 1817.