Pasticcio, Arrangement, or Adaptation? Georg Philipp Telemann's Pasticcio Judith Based on Fortunato Chelleri's dramma per musica Innocenza difesa

Chelleri's dramma per musica Innocenza difesa has survived through four different libretti, a handwritten score of Act One called La Giuditta from Kassel and some arias that Chelleri had printed in the Cantate e Arie con stromenti in London in 1727 and that were copied a few times when Chelleri worked as a Kapellmeister in Stockholm between 1732 and 1734.

E.g. Son qual nave in mezzo | all’onde | Aria da Kelleri | Viol. 1|m|o 2|d|o & viola [score], in S-L, Saml. Engelhart 531.

An overview of the existing libretti titled Innocenza difesa shows that Francesco Silvani's libretto on the descendants and successors of Louis the Pious was in place at the latest from the time of Giuseppe Orlandini's setting for Verona in 1714. In the 1720s it also circulated in a version set by Andrea Stefano Fiorè for Rome (1720) and Turin (1722).

http://corago.unibo.it/risultatolibretti (accessed 16 December 2021).

These last-mentioned versions deal with Louis the Pious’ two sons, Lotario and Carlo, who came from two different marriages to Irmengarda and Giuditta. Before his death, Louis gave some parts of his realm that he had already assigned to his elder sons to the younger Carlo, a decision Lotario contested by waging wars against his brothers. In all the dramme per musica referred to here, Giuditta has another daughter from her first marriage named Gildippe, who is promised to Lotario's son Adalgiso. While Adalgiso, because of his love for Gildippe, strives to stand by Giuditta against Lotario's attacks on Carlo, Asprando, Giuditta's knight and Lotario's confidant, plots against her, e.g. by kidnapping her little son. Since Lotario is always held back by his son Adalgiso, who pleads for the innocent child Carlo, he follows different strategies to get rid of his younger brother as a legal heir to his realm, e.g. by accusing Giuditta of having born Carlo as her confidant Berardo's illegitimate child. When Berardo is about to attack Lotario with his armies in a large arena with a throne, Asprando reveals his intrigues and is forgiven by Giuditta. In this way, the title ‘Innocenza difesa’ (defended innocence) reflects the innocence of Carlo (innocent child), as well as of his mother Giuditta (faithful wife), Adalgiso (defender of Carlo's innocence), and to a lesser extent also Berardo (defender of Giuditta's innocence).

As to the dramaturgy and character constellations, a comparison of the versions for Florence and Venice shows that Chelleri made severe cuts and, in particular, restructured act II. This was possible because the Venetian production was cast with singers from Florence such as Rosaura Mazzanti Fiorentina, Maria Giustina Turcotti Fiorentina, and Giovanni Rapaccioli Fiorentino, but not the same as in the Florentine production.

L’Innocenza difesa. Drama per musica da rappresentarsi Nel Teatro di S. Angelo Nel Carnovale dell’Anno 1722 […] Venezia, MDCCXXII, p. 7. The singers in the Florentine production were Margherita Albinoni, Maria Anna Lorenzani, Vittoria Tesi, Giovanni Antonio Archi di Faenza, Andrea Guerri di Pisa, and Lorenzo Berretta di Lucca. Cf. L’Innocenza difesa. Dramma per musica da rappresentarsi in Firenze Il Carnovale dell’Anno 1721, […] Firenze 1720, p. 7.

During these processes of adaptation, perfecting the musical dramaturgy seems to have been a major goal. For the Venetian production, Silvani's two libretti for Rome and Florence were merged in such a way that most of the recitatives and arias were taken as entire scenes from the two primary versions and were only in some cases mixed and even less frequently completely changed. As can be seen from Table 1, Acts Two and Three are dominated by scenes from the Roman version (in blue). The text of Act Three, on the other hand, is based on the Florentine version (in red). The structure of the Venetian text was also maintained for the Wolfenbüttel production, although the latter comprises even more important cuts and some new arias.

Basically, the adoption of entire scenes also involved the transfer of the arias from the Florentine or Roman versions into the new version for Venice. Since Chelleri often retained two or more consecutive scenes from the former versions, he also transferred entire groups of two or more consecutive arias into his new Venetian version (Table 2). Indeed, the aria plan of the Venetian version only consists of arias or aria groups from the Roman (indicated in blue) and Florentine versions (in red). The six newly inserted arias (two for each act and one for each character) are an exception. The latter arias include two supplementary numbers for the characters of Asprando (I,5) and Adalgiso (final aria of Act Two) that have no direct place in the Roman libretti from which the according recitatives were taken, while the new arias for Giuditta, Lotario, Gildippe, and Berardo were replacements of arias already contained in the Florentine version. This overview hints at the possibility that Chelleri was first and foremost interested in the textual dramaturgy of the Roman version, which he then enhanced with new arias of his own authorship. In contrast to this, the aria plans of the parts from the Florentine version were not changed when retaining the corresponding texts, although the arias sometimes were.

Even if the insertion of new arias and changes in the existing arias might have been motivated by the musical skills of the singers, the Venetian production also contains eight entire aria groups with two or more consecutive arias (indicated by red curly brackets) – four from the Roman version and just as many from the Florentine version. Because of the strong relation of those aria groups retaining two or more consecutive scenes from the former versions, it seems likely that Chelleri worked with them as scene complexes, i.e. major elements of the dramatic structure. In connection with the severe cuts that Chelleri made in the Venetian version, most of those scene complexes seem to have been selected as a basic framework, which he may have seen as textually and musically felicitous. In fact, it is striking that Chelleri mainly took over anchor points for act beginnings and endings from the Roman version and retained central scenes from the Florentine version.

In many cases, the choice of arias from the Roman version seems to have been motivated by the desire to use more concise and succinct aria texts such as the one in ‘Amoretti vezzosetti’ (II,11). This can be demonstrated also for the cuts and remakes of single arias, for example in the very first scene of the whole opera (Table 3). In addition, by adding new choruses from the Roman version such as ‘Viva il pio, felice e giusto’ (I,8), Chelleri enhanced the symmetry between the individual acts.

Looking at the numbers of arias assigned to the individual characters, one can see some larger shifts in the character constellations (Table 4). From a balanced constellation with two minor characters (Asprando and Berardo), Chelleri shifted first to Lotario as a main character in the Venetian version (which may have been motivated by the employment of the singer Giovanni Paita from the Roman production), and then to Adalgiso as the main defender of Carlo's innocence for the Wolfenbüttel production. Giuditta, on the other hand, who was to become the main character in the Kassel score of about 1725 entitled La Giuditta, largely retained her number of arias during the whole process of revisions. Indeed, even if Giuditta's importance was stressed in the course of the extensive cuts of recitatives etc., her name was later cancelled on the title page of the Kassel score and the original title Innocenza difesa was put there instead.

Since in the Venetian production Lotario's role was entrusted to the same singer as in Rome, it is necessary to examine what weight was given in each case to dramaturgical changes and to the singers’ hierarchies. In fact, Lotario is involved in seven out of the eight scene complexes (i.e. takeovers of blocks of several successive scenes and their aria plans rather than just single sections or arias) that Chelleri selected for Venice from the Roman and Florentine versions, and in six of them he sings an aria. Beyond these scene complexes, only one aria for Lotario was inserted into the new version that had nothing to do with the Roman or Florentine versions (‘Un soave dolce affetto’, III,6). Since only three of the scene complexes were retained from the Roman version and since Chelleri placed them at the end of Act One as well as at the beginning and end of Act Two, it might be concluded that the retainment of the Roman scene complexes was not entirely motivated by the pragmatic intention to accommodate the Roman singer in the Venetian production by letting him sing the arias he already knew, but also by dramaturgical considerations. Such dramaturgical motivation becomes most evident at the end of the drama, where a large proportion of the recitatives of the ‘scena ultima’ of the Florentine version was cut. Instead of letting the intriguer Asprando fear his sentence, the Venetian and Roman versions immediately pass on to the forgiving lines by Giuditta. Thus, her recitative not only culminates in affirming the title of the whole opera (that had already been the case in the Florentine version) but also accentuates mercy for the innocent: Giuditta Evviva Asprando ancor, che sì bel giorno Vuol clemenza, non sangue. In tanto io giuro All’ombra del moi sposo, il sacro Alloro, Che in fronte di Lotario oggi risplende A miei suditi, al Figlio, à sommi Dei. Di Berardo, e Giuditta l’innocenza.

L’Innocenza difesa. Drama per musica da rappresentarsi Nel Teatro di S. Angelo Nel Carnovale dell’Anno 1722 […] Venezia, MDCCXXII, p. 56.

Chelleri's aim – to perfect the musical dramaturgy – can also be proved by the fact that four out of those six scene complexes in which Lotario sings an aria were retained for both the Wolfenbüttel and Brunswig versions (the red curly brackets), even if Adalgiso was awarded the most arias here (Table 5). In one of the scene complexes that were left out in Wolfenbüttel, Lotario received another aria (‘Un raggio di speranza’, I,3) and in another one his aria was replaced with a new aria for Adalgiso, the now central character of the whole opera (‘Come il vago ruscelletto’, II,12). To sum up, it can be said that the presence of a singer in several productions could bring about an accentuation of the role, but that this accentuation was at the same time integrated into the overall dramaturgical revision concepts. For example, by following the Roman version at the end of Act Two of his Venetian production, where Lotario ‘lost’ one of his arias, Chelleri highlighted the conflict between Lotario and Adalgiso, who emerged from his father's shadow as a luminous counterpoint to the mistrustful and bitter Lotario.

Adalgiso's text reads as follows: ‘Mi deride Lotario, e non distingue/Dal Figlio il Traditore; / Mà la notte si avvanza, / E il nuovo giorno io spero,/Che cangi di speranza, e scopra il vero. / Nel mio cor ch’è tutto amore / Nobil raggio di Speranza / Sol mi sento à balenar. /Figlio son, ma il Genitore / L’invincibil mia Costanza / Non potrà mai debellar. / Nel ec.’ L’Innocenza difesa. Drama per musica da rappresentarsi Nel Teatro di S. Angelo Nel Carnovale dell’Anno 1722 […] Venezia, MDCCXXII, p. 39.

The Wolfenbüttel version, through further cuts in recitatives and monologues, focused on the conflict between Giuditta and Adalgiso over Carlo's condemnation by Lotario. As to the arias, Chelleri pursued a new strategy in this version that affected the arias of all characters. Since he had stopped composing new operas after the Venetian season of 1722,

M. Talbot, ‘Fortunato Chelleri's Cantate e arie con stromenti (1727): A souvenir of London’, De Musica Disserenda, vol. VII, no. 1, 2011, pp. 52–58.

That Chelleri probably used his London sojourn as an opportunity to excel in the composition of typical arias can be demonstrated on the basis of his foreword to the Cantate ed arie con stromenti, where he stated that he intended to leave a ‘small record of his talent in England’ and that he wanted the ‘mediocre distinguished from the good, and the good from the best’.

Chelleri, Cantate e arie con stromenti, dedication.

To sum up, the overview of Chelleri's revisions gives an impression that his versions for the Italian and German performance venues are clearly different. In Italy, he worked on perfecting the dramaturgy within an operatic network extended between Rome, Florence and Venice. Nevertheless, he still took into account the pragmatic framework, such as serving individual singers. In the German-speaking venues, he seems to have been primarily concerned with perfecting individual arias, an aim that he had already pursued during his stay in London.

As already mentioned, Telemann also looked to London for the production of the pasticcio Judith: This was partly due to the participation of the Hamburg singer Johann Gottfried Riemschneider, who had incorporated the secondary role of Clodomiro in the London production of Handel's Lotario from 1729.

On Riemschneider's participation in the production of Lotario in London and on his Hamburg connections, see G. zur Nieden, ‘Between dwarfs and giants. Aesthetics of the Pasticcio between London and Hamburg’, in B. Over and G. zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe. Contexts, Materials and Aesthetics, Bielefeld, transcript, 2021, pp. 157–158.

The fact that Telemann chose two Handel arias on texts about sight and the eyes can be explained by the Hamburg dramaturgy, which was strongly based on those metaphors.

A. Beise, ‘“…indem eine Opera keine Philosophische Geschichte ist.” Johann Georg Hamanns musikdramatische Aufklärung’, in J. A. Steiger and S. Richter (eds), Hamburg. Eine Metropolregion zwischen Früher Neuzeit und Aufklärung, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 2012, pp. 867–876.

With regard to the scene complexes, at the first glance, the grouping of the two Handel arias ‘Vedrò più liete e belle’ and ‘Arma lo sguardo’ (in Handel's Lotario originally in III,10 and II,8) at the centre of Act Three reveals a similar strategy to the one adopted by Chelleri. But while Chelleri's scene complexes helped him to shorten the libretto and to adopt a more concise wording, Telemann pursued a completely different concept of scene complexes related to stylistic aspects of musical composition. Indeed, as the two arias are placed just before the great showdown in an amphitheatre, this possible stylistic peak compared to Chelleri's arias on the same metaphors was dramaturgically harmonised with the other arias by the dramatic climax.

For an analysis of Handel's arias in comparison to Chelleri's arias see zur Nieden, ‘Between Dwarfs and Giants’, pp. 171–172.

As has been demonstrated on the example of an analysis of Innocenza difesa and Judith in the perspective of the years 1720–1732 and different music venues from Florence, Rome and Venice to Brunswick, Wolfenbüttel, Kassel, London and Hamburg, in the 1720s and 1730s several strategies were employed for revisions as well as for the composition of pasticcios. One of them was to work with scene complexes that both Chelleri and Telemann used or maintained for their settings, even if this happened sometimes in completely different ways. The second strategy that both composers followed was to work with arias promoted in other ways, namely by publishing individual arias in compilations or as sheet music. Using these strategies, they achieved a constant perfection of the musical dramaturgy, be it for the effect of single, textually concise arias, or for the overall dramaturgical structure of their works. Within this process of revision, the orientation towards specific performers or individual venues in London or Hamburg could be accommodated. That is why one can also say that in the early eighteenth century many operas were pasticcios and many pasticcios were also operas.

Nevertheless, different strategies of dramaturgical perfection or adaptations to different audiences can also be identified in different geographical areas. The Italian domain seems to be characterised by loose networks of singers, composers, stage designers, and other actors of the operatic production that ensured operatic transfers between Rome and Florence or Florence, Rome, and Venice. The northern part of Europe, especially Hamburg, was more oriented towards London as a metropolis with a flourishing public music market and the corresponding forms of music reception.

In conclusion, an analysis of operas in the process of adaptations, revisions, and pasticcios not only broadens our understanding of the strategies and units that were used in early eighteenth-century opera composition, such as the scene complexes, but it also indicates the complexity of the network that fostered the processes of revision represented here. This network involved not only composers and singers, but also impresarios, dedicatees, consumers of sheet music, and stage designers. At the same time, the processes were based on the physical and material mobility of the different actors and their objects such as libretti, scores, stage designs, etc. One of the main aspects to examine in the future might be the long-term evolution and transformation of ideas on how to perfect operatic works, which travelled between the different metropolises of early modern opera such as Florence, Venice, London and Hamburg, and may have been the main interest of composers in composing a pasticcio.