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In Naples in 1694, ‘Cavaliere’ Antonio Latini da Colle Amato (1642–1696) published a book on the duties of the steward in an aristocratic household.
A. Latini, Lo scalco alla moderna, overo L’arte di ben disporre i conviti, con le regole più scelte di scalcheria, insegnate, e poste in prattica, à beneficio de’ professori, ed altri studiosi, […], 2 parts, Napoli, s. ed., 1694.
Latini had been in the service of cardinals and princes, as he claims proudly on the title page of his book.
‘Essercitato nel Servigio di Varii Porporati, e Prencipi Grandi.’ He was in the service of Cardinal Antonio Barberini (cardinal-nephew of Pope Urban VIII) in Rome, lived in the orbit of the Colonna family, served the Duke of Mirandola, some families in Macerata, the Venetian Pietro Grimani, Cardinal Francesco Del Giudice, the Altemps family in Rome, Cardinal Carlo Rossetti in Faenza, Don Stefano Carillo Y Salcedo, prime minister of the Regno di Napoli, as well as other Neapolitan families in Naples. Cf. A. Latini, Autobiografia (1642–1696). La vita di uno scalco, F. Luccichenti (ed.), Roma, [Leberit], 1992.
Apart from practical advice Latini describes recipes for dishes which could be served to an aristocratic table as well as orders of courses at banquets he had organised for the nobility. As a rule, two pasticcios were included in these banquets: One as part of the first, cold course and one with the second, warm course. Both were made of the best ingredients (‘nobili ingredienti’), and especially the ones in the first course were moulded into spectacular forms such as stars, suns, hearts, coats of arms, shields, (imperial) eagles, rabbits, dolphins and other fish, ships, and cushions (‘alla Turchesca’). A special feature of the pasticcio was the mixture of tastes, not only because different ingredients (called ‘Compositione’ by Latini) were put together,
For example, Latini, Lo scalco, Part 1, p. 358.
but also with regard to flavour: Whereas the ingredients were salty, the pie was sweet and filled with pieces of sugar (‘ghiaccio’). Moreover, lemon juice was sometimes added. Thus, the pasticcio was a mixture on different levels, since it was composed of different kinds of salty meat (veal, poultry, rabbit, boar, giblets, sausages, ham, bacon, etc.) or fish (incl. squid, oysters, prawns), nuts (pine nuts, pistachios), spices (also truffles), sweet pastry and other sweets (marzipan, sugar), salty and sour sauces (made of eggs, almond milk, or lemons).
The art of cooking a pasticcio was a very special one. In the court kitchen, pie makers were a separate type of kitchen servants and must be considered specialised personnel. At the Munich court, for example, pie makers are recorded in accounts from around 1600 onwards. They often worked in the household of the Duchess (later Electress).
See, for example, the annual account book for 1600: D-Mhsa, Kurbayern Hofzahlamt 49 (Jahresrechnung 1600), fol. 621r and 670r.
In the printed Munich Hofkalender of 1739 two pie makers are listed explicitly and, for the first time, publicly.
M. Fischer, Chur=Bayrischer Hof=Calender auf das Jahr nach der Gnaden=reichen Geburt unsers Herrn und Heylands Jesu Christi M.DCC.XXXIX […], München, Vötter, [1738], section: ‘Churfürstlicher Hof=Statt’, p. 39.
The ‘Pastetten=Köch’ Mathias Daller and Joseph Hechenberger formed part of the kitchen staff, just as ‘Confect-Meister’, ‘Sommelier’, butcher, ‘Mund=Köch’, cooks for the ladies’ chamber, and cooks for roasted meat; they thus performed a highly specialised task. Needless to say, in other contexts as well pie makers formed a separate professional group which must be distinguished from ‘normal’ or other specialised cooks. In Rome, for example, amongst the religious confraternities of the city there was also a confraternity of cooks and pie makers (Compagnia dei cuochi e dei pasticcieri).
J. di Schino and F. Luccichenti, Il cuoco segreto dei papi. Bartolommeo Scappi e la confraternita dei cuochi e dei pasticcieri, Roma, Gangemi, 2007, esp. at pp. 29–42.
But what do these digressions on cooking and pie making have to do with the musical pasticcio? Firstly, although the musical term pasticcio is an anachronistic one and seems to have been applied to music only at around 1740/50, it is clearly derived from the culinary pasticcio and, anyway, culinary metaphors are very commonly employed to describe this specific musical practice.
In a Neapolitan libretto the pasticcio is compared to a salad with different persons adding herbs, oil, vinegar, etc. See A. Romagnoli, ‘Collaboration, Arrangement, ‘Dressing’: The Different Recipes for the pasticcio alla napolitana in the First Half of the 18th Century’, in B. Over and G. zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe: Contexts, Materials and Aesthetics (Mainz Historical Cultural Sciences 45), Bielefeld, transcript, 2021, pp. 349–376, esp. at p. 350.
Secondly, the contemporary notion of the culinary mixture called pasticcio (which is not a cheap recycling of leftovers, but a precious dish)
This precious form of pasticcio was handed down to other social strata when after a banquet organised for Stefano Carillo y Salcedo the servants were given pasticcios which they took home: ‘[…], non si tralasciò di dar recapito alli Cacciatori, Marinari, Carrozzieri, Staffieri, e Lacchei, così de’ Signori, come de’ Gentil’huomini de’ medesimi, quali dopò haver pransato à loro sodisfatione lautamente, d’ordine datosi dal mio Sig. Reggente, hebbero anche i Pasticci, e Pastoni, che li portassero alle loro Case, con altri comestibili, come s’eseguì con molto loro gusto.’ Latini, Lo scalco, Part 1, p. 509. This banquet must have been given around 1691–94 since Pope Innocent XII (1691–1700) is mentioned.
in the same social group that consumed the musical mixture later known as pasticcio (or possibly colloquially this term was applied to music already at the same time?) may have had an impact on the value of and esteem for this musical practice. Up till now, this ‘noble’ notion has commonly been ignored when dealing with the musical pasticcio. However, a more substantial discussion of the negative and positive connotations of the term has been presented by Christine Siegert, who locates the pasticcio between precariat and appreciation, whereas Michael Burden confirms its acceptance by the London public, while explaining that ‘misleading assumptions’ regarding the aesthetic value of pasticcios are due to the traditional work concept not in force in the eighteenth century. Already in the 1970s, Reinhard Strohm asked whether pasticcios, parodies, and borrowings may not result in aesthetically convincing musical pieces.
C. Siegert, ‘Zum Pasticcio-Problem’, in T. Betzwieser (ed.), Opernkonzeption zwischen Berlin und Bayreuth. Das musikalische Theater der Markgräfin Wilhelmine. Referate des Symposiums anlässlich der Aufführung von L’Huomo im Markgräflichen Opernhaus in Bayreuth am 2. Oktober 2009 (Thurnauer Schriften zum Musiktheater 31), Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2016, pp. 155–166; M. Burden, ‘Metastasio’s “London Pasties’: Curate’s Egg or Pudding’s Proof?”, in A. Sommer-Mathis and E.T. Hilscher (eds), Pietro Metastasio – uomo universale (1698–1782). Festgabe der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zum 300. Geburtstag von Pietro Metastasio, Wien, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000, pp. 293–309; R. Strohm, Italienische Opernarien des frühen Settecento (1720–1730), (Analecta Musicologica 16), 2 vols, Köln, Arno Volk, 1976, vol. 1, p. 247.
Thirdly, the term pasticcio was used to describe art products around the same time when Latini published his book. In 1699 Roger de Piles applied it to paintings, i.e. to ‘those Pictures that are neither Original nor Copies, which the Italians call Pastici, from Paste’, also giving a definition that relates the term to the concept of ‘unity amidst variety’, which will be discussed later: ‘because, as the several things that Season a Pasty, are reduc’d to one Tast [!], so Counterfeits that compose a Pastici [!] tend only to effect one Truth’.
G. zur Nieden and B. Over, ‘Introduction’, in B. Over and G. zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe: Contexts, Materials and Aesthetics (Mainz Historical Cultural Sciences 45), Bielefeld, transcript, 2021, pp. 9–25, esp. at p. 12 (English translation of 1706).
Although the specific compilation technique called pasticcio (which may have been similar or tantamount to the capriccio) is documented for the visual arts in the late seventeenth century, in music the term is first found in Johann Joachim Quantz’s autobiography published in 1755, where he mentioned pasticcios (‘Pasteten’) he had heard in Florence in 1725.
‘Herrn Johann Joachim Quantzens Lebenslauf, von ihm selbst entworfen’, in F.W. Marpurg (ed.), Historisch-kritische Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Musik, vols 1, 5. Stück, Berlin, Lange, 1755, pp. 197–250, esp. at p. 230.
In 1742, Horace Walpole reports on the opening of the opera season with a pasticcio.
H. Walpole, Correspondence with Sir Horace Mann (The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence 18), W.S. Lewis, W. Hunting Smith and G.L. Lam (eds), vol. 2, London/New Haven, Milford/Yale University Press, 1955, p. 96 (letter of 1 November).
Moreover, Carlo Goldoni mentions the pasticcio practice occasionally from 1749 onwards (foreword to Ciampi’s Bertoldo, Bertoldino e Cacassenno),
C. Goldoni and V. Ciampi, Bertoldo, Bertoldino e Cacasenno, dramma comico per musica da rappresentarsi nel Teatro Giustiniano di S. Moisé il carnovale dell’anno 1749, Venezia, Modesto Fenzo, 1749, p. 5: ‘Circa le arie, alcune sono figlie legitime, e naturali del Libro, alcune addotate, altre spurie, ed altre adulterine per commodo, e compiacimento de virtuosi, onde ec.’
referring sometimes to earlier episodes in the 1730s (the arrangement of Zeno and Vivaldi’s Griselda in 1735).
R. Heyink, ‘Pasticcio’, in MGG Online, Kassel/Stuttgart/New York, Bärenreiter/Metzler 2016ff., first published 1997, published online 2016, https://www-1mgg-2online-1com-1jvd8i9bh07a0.emedia1.bsb-muenchen.de/mgg/stable/13525 (accessed 3 August 2021); C. Price, ‘Pasticcio’, in Grove Music Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.21051 (accessed 3 August 2021).
In 1759 in Venice he produced a dramma giocoso per musica expressly titled Il pasticcio, where he describes the special musical techniques and practices needed to create such an operatic work.
C. Goldoni/div., Il pasticcio. Dramma giocoso per musica da rappresentarsi nel Teatro Giustiniani di S. Moisè il carnovale dell’anno 1759, Venezia, Modesto Fenzo, 1759, http://corago.unibo.it/libretto/DRT0032885 (accessed 3 August 2021).
Although none of these authors gives clear evidence that pasticcios were held in high esteem (Quantz, for example, uses rather pejorative terms when he claims that pasticcios are ‘cobbled together’), the fact that they were performed on the occasion of important dynastic and state events proves that they indeed were, at least at the respective courts and theatres.
See the examples given by Siegert (‘Das Pasticcio-Problem’, pp. 164–166) and Romagnoli, ‘Collaboration’.
Leaving terminology aside, the first music-dramatic compositions using pasticcio technique were created much earlier. If we exclude earlier works characterised by co-authorship, such as the famous Florentine intermedi from 1589 (with music by Cristofano Malvezzi, Luca Marenzio, Giulio Caccini, Jacopo Peri, Giovanni de’ Bardi, Emilio de’ Cavalieri, and possibly Antonio Archilei) and concentrate on the opera alone, such practice dates back to the 1650s when, together with the establishment of the commercial operatic business, operas began to be adapted for revivals in other places and circumstances. (Naturally, the culinary pasticcio dates back to earlier times too.
See, for example, the orders of courses in V. Mattei, Teatro nobilissimo di scalcheria […] per apparecchio di banchetti à gran Prencipi, secondo il variar delle Stagioni […]. Dedicato all’Eminentissimo, e Reverendissimo Sig. Cardinale Giacomo Rospigliosi, Roma, Giacomo Dragondelli, 1669; V. Lancellotti, Lo scalco prattico […] all’Illustrissimo, e Reverendiss. Prencipe il Card. Ipoolito Aldobrandino Camerlengo di Santa Chiesa, Roma, Francesco Corbelletti, 1627; V. Cervio, Il trinciante […], ampliato et a perfettione ridotto dal Cavalier Reale Fusoritto da Narni, già trinciante dell’Illustrissimo, & Reverendissimo Signor Cardinal Farnese, & al presente dell’Illustriss. Signor Cardinal Mont’alto […], Roma, Stampa del Gabbia, 1593, pp. 88 ff. On household staff in Rome cf. N. Gozzano, Lo specchio della corte. Il maestro di casa. Gentiluomini al servizio del collezionismo a Roma nel Seicento, Roma, Campisano, 2015.
) Whereas these adapted operas were normally written by a single author and modified through the insertion of substitute material by other composers
Well-known cases are Claudio Monteverdi’s Incoronazione di Poppea (Venice 1642) produced in Naples in 1651 with material by Francesco Cavalli, and Cavalli’s Giasone (Venice 1649) produced in several cities, amongst them Rome, where it was revived with music by Alessandro Stradella in 1671. Cf. E. Rosand, ‘L’incoronazione di Poppea di Francesco Cavalli’, in D. Fabris and F. Castaldo (eds), Francesco Cavalli: La circolazione dell’opera veneziana nel Seicento/The Circulation of Venetian Opera in the 17th Century, Napoli, Editoriale Scientifica, 2005, pp. 119–146; N. Usula, ‘From Jason to Jason: Cavalli Reworked by Stradella (Venice 1649 – Rome 1671)’, Basler Jahrbuch für historische Musikpraxis, vol. 38 (Reworkings: Musical Re-Elaboration and Cultural Context), 2014, pp. 69–84. Cf. also the case of Le reciproche gelosie by Francesco Nencini and Alessandro Melani (Siena 1678), which was performed several times until 1699 and continuously modified as Giulia Giovani demonstrated in her paper ‘Le reciproche gelosie by Alessandro Melani and Francesco Nencini: A Trip Across Different Versions’, presented at the Biennial Baroque Conference Birmingham in July 2021.
or were collaborative works,
For example, Giovanni Loreno Lulier wrote several operas in collaboration with composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, Giovanni Bononcini, Carlo Francesco Pollarolo or Carlo Francesco Cesarini in the 1690s. Cf. L. Lindgren, ‘Lulier, Giovanni Lorenzo’, in Grove Music Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.17156 (accessed 3 August 2021).
a true pasticcio assembling diverse musical material is exemplified by Arione (Milan 1694).
The procedures adopted in pasticcios until around 1750 will be described in more detail in the following paragraphs, relating them to the more ‘prestigious’ concept of the culinary pasticcio. Beginning with a discussion of Arione, I will concentrate on the pasticcios which are the focus of our research project: Catone (London 1732) and Didone (London 1737), arranged by George Frideric Handel, as well as Catone in Utica (Graz 1740, Hamburg 1744, Leipzig 1747, Dresden 1747) and Didone abbandonata (possibly Linz 1731–1734, Brno/Brünn 1734, Graz 1737, Ljubljana/Laibach 1742, Hamburg 1744, Hamburg 1746, Dresden, Leipzig, Hamburg 1747, Copenhagen 1748), arranged by the Mingotti opera troupe. However, the aim of this article is not to ‘prove’ the validity of the ‘noble’ concept of the pasticcio, but to test its applicability.
ARIONE (MILAN 1694)
Presented in Milan in 1694, Arione was performed in the year when Latini’s book was published. Moreover, it is a good example of a pasticcio presented for an important occasion. Arione contains arias by twenty-eight composers (amongst them Carlo Francesco Pollarolo, Alessandro Scarlatti, Luigi Mancia, and Giuseppe Torelli, as well as a range of local composers such as Giulio d’Alessandri Chiapetta, Giovanni Battista Brevi, Giuseppe Scacabarozzi, Francesco Ballarotti and Giacomo Griffini from the nearby Bergamo and Lodi, the singers Carlo Antonio Landriani and Sebastiano Vianova, Angelo Domenico Legnani from Turin, plus some obscure names),
Although Carlo Ambrogio Lonati is mentioned sometimes in dictionaries and catalogue entries as a composer involved in the production of Arione, his name does not appear in the libretto; see the Appendix.
which were inserted in between recitatives by the Milanese Carlo Valtolina (Acts I and III) and Dionigi Erba (Act II) based on a newly written text by Count Oreste d’Arles.
O. d’Arles/div., L’Arione. Drama musicale nel compimento de anni della S.C.R.M. dell’Imperatore Leopoldo I. consacrato all’Ill. ma et Ecc.ma Sig.ra D. Isabella Maria della Zerda, et Arragona Duchessa del Sesto &c., Milano, Francesco Vigone, 1694 (I-Mb, SS.01.0067). On Arione, see also Price, ‘Pasticcio’. The score of Arione has not survived.
The arrangement of such a broad musical selection was made possible by the ‘modularisation’ of operatic structure in the later seventeenth century, with its clear distinction between recitative and aria (whereas in earlier times they had been much more interwoven).
Arione does not seem to have been a ‘noble dish’ because of the lack of a broader representation of more prestigious composers. Nevertheless, it implemented a unifying idea: its local orientation (apart from Pollarolo, Scarlatti, Mancia, Legnani, and Torelli, the majority of the composers seem to have been connected with Milan) made it a showcase for local pride and taste. Moreover, it was associated with illustrious names: after all, it was performed for Emperor Leopold I’s birthday and dedicated to Isabella María de la Cerda y Aragón, wife of Filippo Antonio Spinola Colonna, an ambitious nobleman whose father Paolo Spinola Doria, marchese di Los Balbases, had been Spanish governor of the Duchy of Milan twice between 1668 and 1670.
A. Lercari, ‘Spinola Doria, Paolo’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 93, 2018, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/paolospinola-doria_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/ (accessed 3 August 2021); N. Bazzano, ‘Spinola Colonna, Filippo Antonio’, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, vol. 93, 2018, https://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/spinola-colonna-filippo-antonio_%28Dizionario-Biografico%29/ (accessed 3 August 2021).
The year 1694 also saw the publication of the history of the Spinola family, equally dedicated to Emperor Leopold I,
M. Deza, Istoria della famiglia Spinola descritta dalla sua origine fino al secolo XVI. […] dedicata alla Sacra Cesarea Reale Maestà di Leopoldo I. Gloriosissimo Imperatore, Piacenza, Giovanni Bazachi, 1694.
so that personal aims may have played a role in the production of this ‘local’ pasticcio.
The musical choice of Arione was subject to an idea which functions as a bracket for the diverse musical material (‘local patriotism’). It thus conforms to the philosophical and aesthetical concept of ‘unity amidst variety’ discussed by Descartes, Leibniz, Shaftesbury, and others, meaning that every part of an object refers to the whole (which is the sense of de Piles’ definition mentioned above, applying the concept to the culinary pasticcio as well as to the object of art and calling unity ‘one taste’ and ‘one truth’). Through ‘unity amidst variety’ or ‘Einheit in der Vielheit’, harmony and beauty are achieved.
I cannot further elaborate on the concept here, but see E. Kernbauer, Der Platz des Publikums. Modelle für Kunstöffentlichkeit im 18. Jahrhundert (Studien zur Kunst 19), Köln et al., Böhlau Verlag, 2011, pp. 193–202; H. Poser, ‘Der Leibnizsche Harmoniebegriff als Einheit in der Vielheit’, in S. Wilkens (ed.), Leibniz, die Künste und die Musik: ihre Geschichte, Theorie und Wissenschaft, München/Salzburg, Musikverlag Katzbichler, 2007, pp. 129–145; L. Procuranti, La percezione del bello da Descartes a Kant, Trento, Verifiche, 2009, pp. 69–117; A. Baum, Selbstgefühl und reflektierte Neigung. Ästhetik und Ethik bei Shaftesbury (Problemata 143), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt, Frommann, 2001, pp. 164–169. Cf. also I. Knoth, ‘Just for the Ladies? Compilation, Knowledge Practice and Pasticcio in England around 1720’, Musicology Today, vol. 18, 2021, pp. 11–19.
However, the concept is very flexible. It could also be applied, for instance, to a unifying opera plot or theme which brings together music of different moods, tempi and styles from a single composer to form an aesthetic object of beauty. This need not necessarily be a pasticcio, but could also be an opera or an opera ‘impasticciata’, i.e. an opera ‘enriched’ with ‘foreign’ material.
On this kind of operas cf. G. Polin, ‘Le “opere / che al dosso degli attor non son tagliate / riescon per ordinario impasticciate”. Riflessioni sullo status del testo spettacolare melodrammatico nel Settecento’, in G. Pitarresi (ed.), Responsabilità d’autore e collaborazione nell’opera dell’età barocca: Il pasticcio. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Reggio Calabria, 2–3 ottobre 2009), Reggio Calabria, Laruffa, 2011, pp. 325–364
In other words: an idea could easily be found and the concept could be applied in manifold ways. Nevertheless, for the pasticcio, the importance of the unifying power that a possible idea (with its potential to create ‘unity amidst variety’) may have for its evaluation cannot be ignored.
As a showcase for a ‘campanilistic’ musical selection embedded in the pastry of a newly written opera plot,
In a note to the readers the librettist assures that: ‘Il presente Drama, si pone sotto il Torchio delle Stampe, non per compiacere alla propria satisfattione di chi lo scrisse in pochissimi giorni; mà per ubbidienza dovuta ad un Sovrano commando; […],’ and explains the purpose of his text, which is ‘to co-ordinate a welcome compendium of music’ (‘per accordare almeno un grato compendio di Musica’), i.e. a rather self-contained and exhaustive choice of music. D’Arles, L’Arione, ‘Lettore’.
Arione is equally consistent with the pasticcio of the then cuisine. As a showcase, the culinary pasticcio frequently takes the shape of a coat of arms, heraldic animal or shield (with heraldic motives?) and thus alludes to the celebrated noble family and its importance (or to noble families and their importance, in the case of wedding banquets). It is a form of representation (as also is the banquet as a whole) and it places a stamp on the entire festive event.
The art of showcasing is essential to eighteenth-century opera in general when singers’ acting and singing abilities are presented to the public through the poet’s skilful arrangement of the course of action and the scenes as well as through the composer’s specially tailored compositions. This art is carried to extremes in the pasticcio, which offers other forms of showcasing: as in Arione local taste could be exemplified and honoured, in Neapolitan pasticcios the best of current musical art could be presented,
Romagnoli, ‘Collaboration’.
and in Leo’s Catone in Utica and Handel’s Catone – a new singer (Farinelli, resp. Celeste Gismondi alias Resse alias Hempson/Hampson) could be showcased in front of the curious audience.
B. Over, ‘Paradigmen musikalischer Mobilität: Händels Pasticci’, Händel-Jahrbuch, vol. 65, 2019, pp. 85–103; B. Over, ‘From Opera to Pasticcio: Handel’s Revisions of Leo’s Catone in Utica (1732)’, Studi musicali, vol. 11, no. 2, 2020, pp. 69–99; B. Over, ‘How to Impress the Public: Farinelli’s Venetian Debut in 1728–1729’, Musicology Today, vol. 17, 2020, pp. 14–33, https://doi.org/10.2478/muso-2020-0002 (accessed 3 August 2021).
In the Mingotti Amor, odio e pentimento, a broader public could be treated to a noble family’s (Attems) favourite airs, thus enhancing their music-collecting activity.
M. Kokole, ‘The Graz 1740 Pasticcio Amor, odio e pentimento: A Special Case or Mingotti’s Common Practice?’, in B. Over and G. zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe: Contexts, Materials and Aesthetics (Mainz Historical Cultural Sciences 45), Bielefeld, transcript, 2021, pp. 507–525. This is not an isolated case: in Catone, too, arias were inserted which came from operas dedicated to the English nobility; see also below. Over, ‘Paradigmen’, pp. 95–96.
In Viennese and Hamburg pasticcios, special musical features could be emphasised (through unifying motifs or comparative approaches).
J. Zsovár, ‘Singers of the Viennese Kärntnertortheater in the Light of Aria Substitutions and Pasticcios’, in Over and zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios, pp. 425–446, esp. pp. 444–445; G. zur Nieden, ‘Between Dwarfs and Giants: Aesthetics of the Pasticcio between London and Hamburg’, in Over and zur Nieden (eds), pp. 153–177, esp. at pp. 164–173.
Above all, music which had already been tested and proved successful could be revived. It benefitted from previous experience and acclaim, promising appeal and attraction to the audience.
CATONE AND DIDONE (ARR. GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL)
The strategies and procedures adopted in the pasticcios staged by Handel are manifold. They have largely been analysed by Reinhard Strohm, John H. Roberts and, more recently, by Carlo Lanfossi in his dissertation.
R. Strohm, ‘Händels Pasticci’, in A. Jacobshagen and P. Mücke (eds), Händels Opern (Das Händel-Handbuch 2), Laaber, Laaber Verlag, 2009, vol. 2, pp. 351–433; J.H. Roberts, several entries in A. Landgraf and D. Vickers (eds), The Cambridge Handel Encyclopedia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009, and other studies; C. Lanfossi, ‘Handel as Arranger and Producer: Listening to Pasticci in Eighteenth-Century London’, PhD Thesis, University of Pennsylvania 2018, unpublished.
The sources for the musical concept of Catone are many. Although Handel had not had the opportunity to hear Farinelli’s debut opera, Leonardo Leo’s Catone in Utica, itself an ‘opera impasticciata’,
On the performance version of Leo’s opera, see Over, ‘How to Impress the Public’.
shown in Venice in the 1728/29 season, which he chose as the basis for his pasticcio,
He simply arrived too late in the lagoon city (he departed from London on 15 February, the opera stopped being shown before 12 February 1729). Cf. Over, ‘Paradigmen’, p. 86.
he may have heard of the famous castrato’s fabulous appearance in Leo’s opera. Moreover, he could have heard the singer himself in the second opera of the carnival season, Pietro Metastasio’s and Nicola Porpora’s Semiramide riconosciuta, which premiered on 12 February 1729. I think this (apart from the importance of the figure of Cato in British political thought of the time) may have motivated him to stage Catone some years later in London.
Cf. B. Over, ‘Catone Group of Works: Preface’, to be published at https://www.pasticcio-project.eu.
Another incentive may have come from the English nobility staying in Italy at this time. John Buckworth, present in Venice from the end of 1728 until 6 March 1729, owned the score used by Handel, as numerous pencil marks show; some arias from operas dedicated to English travellers were taken over into the pasticcio.
Bertolli: ‘Un raggio di speme’ (= ‘Un raggio di stella’, Johann Adolf Hasse, Dalisa, Venice 1730, dedicated to Edward Coke); Celeste Gismondi: ‘Fra tanti pensieri’ (Hasse, Demetrio, Venice 1732, dedicated to Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex); Gismondi: ‘Vede il nocchier la sponda’ (Hasse, Euristeo, Venice 1732, dedicated to the ‘Nazione Inglese’). On the aria choice in Catone, see also Over, ‘Paradigmen’.
A third source for the inserted music may have been the newly arrived singer Celeste Resse/Gismondi, since she sang some arias she had heard and seen performed in Naples where she had been engaged for the specialised comic roles in the intermezzi.
‘Chi mi toglie il mio dolce compagno’, ‘Sento in riva all’atre sponde’ (Hasse, Attalo, Naples 1728), ‘Care faci del ben mio’ (= ‘Care luci del ben mio’, Pietro Filippo Scarlatti, Clitarco, Naples 1728), ‘Vaghe labra, voi fingete’ (= ‘Vaghe labra, voi ridete’, Hasse, Ulderica, Naples 1729).
She thus knew the musical and gestural interpretations of the original singers who had performed the arias later inserted in London in the serious operas accompanied by Resse’s intermezzi. This may have helped Resse to position herself as a serious character. Moreover, she created a certain image of herself by singing mostly highly demanding castrato arias, some of which she had possibly heard and collected during her trip from Naples to London.
‘La cervetta timidetta’ (Giacinto Fontana/Farfallino, A. Vivaldi, Giustino, Rome 1724), ‘Priva del caro sposo’ (Angelo Maria Monticelli, N. Porpora, Germanico in Germania, Rome 1732), ‘Vaghe labra, voi fingete’ (Giovanni Carestini, see n. 35), ‘Care faci del ben mio’ (Antonio Bernacchi, see n. 35), ‘Vede il nocchier la sponda’ (Gaetano Majorano/Caffarelli, see n. 34).
The fourth source were classical ‘baggage arias’, which were inserted exclusively by Antonio Montagnana.
“Non paventa del mar le procelle” (Nicola Porpora, Siface, Rome 1730), ‘È ver che all’amo intorno’ (N. Porpora, Poro, Turin 1731).
His experience may also have influenced the choice of a new aria for Francesca Bertolli since it was taken from an opera where he had performed and from which one of his arias was taken over for Catone.
‘Quando piomba improvisa saetta’ (N. Porpora, Poro, Turin 1731).
The rest may have been taken from music materials belonging to the agents involved in the opera production (the singers, the composer, the impresario etc.) or circulating in London. Because the aria choice reveals a specific musical concept, the guiding hand behind the arrangement of Catone must be identified as that of George Frideric Handel. Some of the inserted arias musically relate to the ones in the original opera, and the third act was remodelled as a musical climax, presenting almost every singer with a virtuoso aria.
Over, ‘From Opera to Pasticcio’, pp. 86–93.
It is unlikely that this purposeful and intentional concept was a result of coincidence. I believe that it was derived from Handel’s musical ideas.
Is there, however, a unifying idea behind Catone that makes it ‘noble’? In fact, there is a specific musical concept which suggests a great deal of reflection. It involves the remodelling of Leo’s musical ideas with music by other composers (as evidenced by similar motives, rhythms, tempi, etc.), the specific musical outline of Gismondi’s role (substitutes of the substitute arias show identical musical features, such as tone repetitions or sordini strings; arias originally sung by castratos were mainly inserted) and the re-thinking of the third act – all needed a careful choice of the music, and they are solid evidence that the pasticcio may not have been assembled in a hurry. As in the culinary pasticcio, pieces are carefully selected and not randomly ‘thrown together’. In this respect, it may be classified as ‘noble’ although a single unifying idea cannot be identified.
In Didone, based on Leonardo Vinci’s setting for Rome (1726) no similar musical concept can be perceived. Vinci’s model was left largely unchanged, with nine arias exchanged, three arias slightly and one heavily revised.
J.H. Roberts, ‘Handel and Vinci’s ‘Didone abbandonata’: Revisions and Borrowings’, Music & Letters, vol. 67, 1987, pp. 141–150; Strohm, ‘Händels Pasticci’, pp. 422–426. The heavily revised aria is ‘Se vuoi ch’io mora’, from which Handel borrowed two passages for Giustino (London 1737).
The biggest share of substituted arias falls on Gioacchino Conti, il Gizziello (4 arias),
‘Ahi lasso qual pena’ (composer’s name not determined; identical to Baldassare Galuppi, ‘Spietato che pena’, GB-Lgc, G Mus.432; Anon., ‘T’intendo qual pena’, US-BEm. MS 15; text ‘Ahi lassa vorrei’ in V. Chiocchetti, Demofoonte, Genoa 1735, III,6, sung by Dircea, i.e. Anna Peruzzi; Conti was also in the cast), ‘Tra fieri opposti venti’ (composer unknown), ‘Sono intrepido nell’alma’ (Geminiano Giacomelli, Annibale, Rome 1731), ‘A trionfarmi chiama’ (= ‘Vede il nocchier la sponda’, Hasse, Euristeo, Venice 1732).
followed by Francesca Bertolli and Domenico Annibali (2 arias each).
Giovanni Antonio Bertoli: ‘Tanto amor sì bella fede’ (= ‘Ei d’amor quasi delira’, Leonardo Vinci, Semiramide riconosciuta, Rome 1729), ‘Ch’io resti, ch’io viva’ (= ‘Ch’io speri? Ma come?’, Hasse, Issipile, Naples 1732); Domenico Annibali: ‘Mi tradì l’infida sorte’ (= ‘Quel pastor che unendo al suono’ by Giovanni Alberto Ristori), ‘Cadrà fra poco in cenere’ (= ‘Non sempre oprar da forte’, Hasse, Cajo Fabricio, Rome 1732).
For Anna Maria Strada, only one aria was replaced.
“Ritorna a lusingarmi“ (Antonio Vivaldi, Griselda, Rome 1735). Roberts (‘Handel and Vinci’s ‘Didone abbandonata’’, p. 149) argues that Vinci’s aria was probably exchanged because Handel borrowed twelve bars from it for Arminio (London 1737).
Most of the changes seem to have been motivated by the arrival of the new singers Conti and Annibali and by changes in the cast (the alto Bertolli took over the soprano role of Selene). A unifying idea cannot be found and in its actual form, Didone is an ‘opera impasticciata’ rather than a pasticcio.
THE MINGOTTI PASTICCIOS DIDONE ABBANDONATA AND CATONE IN UTICA
The fact that the pasticcios of the Mingotti opera troupe were often performed more than once in different regional and local contexts and with different singers necessitated a rather multi-functional shape of the numbers (recitatives and arias). In Didone abbandonata, we can observe that the same recitative structure seems to have been used over and over again for no less than fifteen years. It remained rather unchanged despite the different composers who are mentioned in the libretti and to whom the authorship was attributed (Tomaso Albinoni, Domenico Sarro, Paolo Scalabrini). This suggests that the music of the recitatives probably did not change except when it had to be adjusted due to aria substitutions and the possible resulting key changes, or to changing voice types.
B. Over, ‘Dido Abandoned? Shifts of Focus and Artistic Choices in Didone pasticcios of the Mingotti Opera Troupe’, in Over and zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios, pp. 285–328, esp. at pp. 287–290.
The recitative structure of Catone in Utica was in all likelihood composed ex novo for the troupe around 1740 since it used the text version of Metastasio’s opera published by Bettinelli in 1733. In comparison to the first performance in 1728 and later revivals, this new version includes a substantial variant in Act II, Scene 10, not in use in Italian theatres. Mingotti’s Catone in Utica (1740) was apparently the first piece to use it.
B. Over, ‘Mingotti Opera Troupe (arr.), Catone in Utica (Hamburg 1744): Work History’, to be published at https://www.pasticcio-project.eu.
The multi-functional approach of the recitative structures is also demonstrated by the rather limited voice ranges of the recitatives in Catone in Utica and Didone abbandonata. Thus, the recitatives could be sung by different voice types (for example, by a high or a mezzo soprano according to what singers were available).
Over, ‘Mingotti Opera Troupe’.
In every case, these recitative structures provide the framework into which arias could be inserted.
Handel, on the contrary, abbreviated the recitatives of Leo’s opera considerably and needed to adjust the original ones for other voice types. But his rewriting was not only necessitated by changing voice ranges. He also observed and exploited the special qualities or preferences of the singers. He thus in many instances rewrote Anna Maria Strada’s recitatives in a higher tessitura than originally conceived for the somewhat lower soprano Lucia Facchinelli. Strada’s higher voice seems to have been the reason for this revision, rather than the need to adapt or connect the recitatives to changed melodic lines and harmonic progressions because of re-compositions or shortenings prepared for other singers.
B. Over, ‘George Frideric Handel (arr.), Catone (London 1732): Work History’, to be published at https://www.pasticcio-project.eu.
Obviously, singers sought to be brilliant not only in the arias, but also in recitatives that fitted their voices. This holds not only for the dramatic and effective accompagnato,
In Didone, Handel transposed Didone’s final accompagnato a tone up for Strada and changed the vocal line. Cf. Roberts, ‘Handel and Vinci’s ‘Didone abbandonata’’, p. 142, and the Handexemplar in GB-Lbl, Add.31607, pp. 289–296.
but even more for secco recitatives. In every case, it must be stressed that Handel’s careful adaption of the recitatives is rather inconsistent with frequent claims concerning the indifference of the London public to recitatives in general.
That Mingotti’s fixed recitative structure does not imply a fixed dramaturgy in arias is evident on the example of Selene’s Scene 9 from Act II of Didone abbandonata; most of the music inserted over the years seems to be extant. The arias present a wide variety of mood and style and reveal that Selene’s scene was not regarded as an unchangeable entity which projected a specific dramatic and emotional content. In this case, the scene emerges as a vehicle for music of every kind.
Over, ‘Dido Abandoned’, pp. 297–305.
In comparison to Handel, who often remodels Leo’s Catone in Utica with music by other composers (suggesting that Leo’s music-dramatic conception may have been rather consistent in the eyes of the agents involved in the production), the Mingottis’ approach shows that such considerations did not play a role.
Unlike Handel, who often did not meddle with the music of the inserted arias,
This is the case with Catone. As mentioned earlier, in Didone arias were slightly or heavily revised.
the music the Mingottis used was sometimes considerably modified. This was certainly the work of the troupe’s then composers, Paolo Scalabrini (1742–1748) and Christoph Willibald Gluck (1747–1749). In Catone in Utica, in some cases the arias are shortened so as to reduce redundant motives (for example, in ‘Chi mai d’iniqua stella’ by Andrea Bernasconi) and adapt arias by foreign composers to Italian standards (for example, the rather lengthy B section of the aria ‘O nel sen di qualche stella’ by Carl Heinrich Graun was abbreviated, probably to conform to the Italian preference for briefer B sections at the time). Furthermore, the musical flow is regulated when an aria from the buffo repertoire is made more seria-like through a symmetrical arrangement of motives (Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s ‘È strano il mio tormento’ from Lo frate ’nnamorato). Rhythmically rather complicated motives could be simplified (for example, coloraturas and accompaniments in the Graun aria already mentioned). That these simplifications were probably not introduced with a specific singer in mind may be demonstrated by the fact that it was sung by the would-be star singer Regina Valentini Mingotti, who may have been capable of singing the original version. This creates the impression that the Mingottis wished be somewhat more Italian than the Italians themselves, and to conform to stereotypes of Italian music that may have circulated in the north, in this case melodically catchy coloraturas and accompaniments producing a tapestry of sound. Expectations of the public seem to have been the focus of the troupe and were also fulfilled when the artists adopted the local repertoire policy, such as the repeat of operas and arias in different seasons in their Hamburg opera productions.
B. Over, ‘Arrangement Practices in Pasticcios: The Examples of Catone (arr. G.F. Handel) and Catone in Utica (arr. Mingotti Opera Troupe)’, to be published at https://www.pasticcio-project.eu.
In the Dresden Catone in Utica (1747), apart from arias inserted according to some non-apparent system, three arias for Regina Valentini seem to have been expressly composed for the singer because these composers had not set Catone in Utica, from which the texts were taken (or only set that opera at a later stage).
Ignazio Fiorillo, ‘Nell’ardire che il seno ti accende’, Niccolò Jommelli, ‘Chi un dolce amor condanna’ (Jommelli was involved in the revisions of the Venetian revival of Vinci’s Catone in Utica in 1746/47, but according to the libretto he did not compose the aria in question; he only set Catone in Utica for Stuttgart in 1754), Pietro Domenico Paradies, ‘Se in campo armato’.
Be that as it may, in every case this set of arias points to a singer-oriented strategy. Other performer-oriented approaches are evident in the insertion of arias obtained through professional networks and of baggage arias. An example of the former may be the aria ‘Tu mi scorgi al gran disegno’ from Johann Adolf Hasse’s Didone abbandonata (Hubertusburg and Dresden 1742/43) which the Mingottis may have received from Giuseppe Schuster, who premiered the aria and sang with the troupe in 1746.
Over, ‘Dido Abandoned, p. 294.
An example of baggage arias is the case of Giustina Turcotti, who sang in Vinci’s Catone in Utica in Florence in 1729 and seems to have inserted her arias in the Mingotti Catone (Dresden 1747). She also sang in Giovanni Battista Lampugnani’s Didone abbandonata in Crema in 1745 and seems to have taken over the same arias for the Mingotti Didone (Hamburg 1746).
Over, pp. 293–294.
In both operas she inserted arias she had previously sung in Italy; in the case of Catone, it had been a much earlier production. Generally, in contrast to Handel, who selected pieces from the current repertoire, the two Mingotti pasticcios contained much older numbers which may have had the status of ‘classics’ (e.g. arias by Vinci and Pergolesi) or ‘favourites’ (e.g. Hasse’s ‘Vede il nocchier la sponda’, an aria frequently found in pasticcios; it is also included in Handel’s Catone and Didone, in the latter with the text ‘A trionfar mi chiama’). The wide range of music in the Mingotti pasticcios could also be interpreted as a means to attract a wide non-Italian audience, satisfying both those who preferred the music of the 1730s and those preferring arias that featured the latest stylistic developments. The Italian public would not have appreciated such a concept in most cases, since the striving for modernity was imperative in Italy.
[Vinci’s Catone in Utica (Rome 1728) was, however, revived in Venice as late as 1746/47. Nevertheless, it was now modernised and included arias by Niccolò Jommelli expressly written for this revival as well as several ones by other composers.
‘La Musica / È del Celebre fu Lunardo Vinci, eccettuate le Arie segnate. Quelle che sono distinte con una Stelletta sola sono del Signor Niccolò Iomelli Maestro del Pio Ospitale de Mendicanti [recte: Incurabili].’ There are also arias with two asterisks. Il Catone in Utica. Dramma per musica da rappresentarsi nel Teatro Tron di S. Cassiano il carnovale dell’anno MDCCXLVII, [Venice 1746], p. [6].
Moreover, the recitatives were changed; the 1746/47 libretto uses the second version of the ending written by Metastasio for the Venetian performance in 1728/29, whereas the premiere with Vinci’s music in Rome in 1728 featured the original ending. Which recitatives were used in 1746/47 from Act III, Scene 5 onwards, and who the composer was of the chorus ‘Già ti cede il mondo intero’ (III,13) – is not mentioned in the libretto, but they definitely cannot have been by Vinci, who had died in 1730 and had not composed them at an earlier date. The Venetian 1746/47 performance of Catone in Utica is a rare example of a nearly twenty-year-old opera revived in Italy in that period and it perfectly demonstrates Vinci’s fame and the demands of updating.
From Jommelli’s share, only the aria ‘Deh placati al fine’ seems to have been preserved (GB-Lbl, Add.14219, in the Selvaggi collection from Naples; Add.31597). His aria ‘Grata sono al tuo bel core’ was inserted in Mingotti’s Catone in Utica pasticcio performed in Dresden in 1747.
It is also significant that the most popular arias from Vinci’s opera (their popularity is corroborated by the high number of copies found in RISM), namely ‘Dovea svenarti allora’ (ten copies), ‘Confusa, smarrita’ (nine copies), ‘Chi un dolce amor condanna’, and ‘Se in campo armato’ (four copies each) were retained in this version. Incidentally, the Mingotti Catone in Utica likewise contained Vinci’s ‘Dovea svenarti allora’.]
Were the two Mingotti pasticcios unified by an idea? The only idea which can be detected seems to be a commercial one: through a broad choice of ‘classics’, ‘favourites’, and novelties from a vast period of time as well as through simplifying and corrective arrangements, the troupe may have been able to meet the tastes and expectations of the public. Does this procedure express a ‘noble’ concept promising ‘unity amidst variety’? Unity is only achieved by the opera plot, but cannot be proven by musical means.
To conclude, the ‘noble’ musical pasticcio may manifest itself in different forms. A common trait may be found in the fact that despite a heterogeneous musical content, a cohesive intention can be perceived. This intention creates ‘unity amidst variety’ or ‘one taste’ and ‘one truth’ which, according to Roger de Piles, characterise culinary pasticcios and compiled paintings, and relate the different parts to the whole. This could be a local orientation in the choice of music, a specific musical concept, a compilation of the best music available at a specific moment in time, an orientation towards a patron or patrons. In each case, the diverse musical ingredients were arranged in the pastry of a unifying idea. But this is only one facet of the musical pasticcio. In fact, several levels can be recognised, which represent different attitudes to this kind of opera. In the case of Handel there are many ideas behind the creation of Catone, but the music seems to have been carefully selected. In the case of the Mingotti troupe, no specific idea can be extracted for the pasticcios Catone in Utica and Didone abbandonata. But, more than in any other case, the ‘nobility’ of the musical pasticcio may have been disregarded in ‘emergency situations’ (as Gianluca Stefani labelled them). When assembled at the last minute, the pressure of time and circumstances seem have to not favoured a more profound reflection on the intentions, dramaturgy, and coherence.
G. Stefani, ‘Production of Opera Pasticcios in Venice in the Early 18th Century: The Impresario’s Role’, in Over and zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios, pp. 377–396, esp. at p. 391.
In such cases, the pasticcio resembles a dish of no value, whose ingredients are thrown together at random. And this is the notion of the genre that has mainly survived until today. In many other instances, however, the musical pasticcio conforms to the recipe for a ‘noble’ dish that was the highlight of every aristocratic banquet in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
