Pasticcio and Pleasure. L’abbandono di Armida (Venice 1729)

For the 1728 St John’s Fair in Breslau (present-day Wrocław), the Italian opera troupe of Venetian-born composer, singer and impresario Antonio Bioni staged at the Ballhaus a pasticcio titled La costanza di Griselda, but better known as Griselda (libr. Apostolo Zeno). The readers of the Schlesischer Nouvellen-Courier could read the following note about this spectacle:

[…] but this opera contains a peculiarity which has never been seen here because it has not been set to music by a single Kapellemister as it happens normally and as all previous operas have been produced here. But the impresarios had the idea to have sent the most beautiful arias by the greatest and most renowned men from all Italy, to collect them, to choose the best and most appropriate and to put them into this opera. They did it in this way that every aria is made by another master; therefore, the difference of taste and the strength of such various compositions should inspire a particular pleasure […].

Schlesischer Nouvellen-Courier, no. 98, 17^th June 1728, quoted after: J. Spačilová, ‘Local Conditions of Pasticcio Production and Reception. Between Prague, Wrocław and Moravia’, in B. Over and G. zur Nieden (eds), Operatic Pasticcios in 18th-Century Europe. Contexts, Materials and Aesthetics, Bielefeld, transcript Verlag, 2021, pp. 494–495.

The names, in fact, include stars of the then Italian operatic world such as Leonardo Vinci, Domenico Sarro, Nicola Porpora, Giuseppe Maria Orlandini, Antonio Vivaldi, Giacomo Giacomelli, Giovanni Porta, Giovanni Maria Cappelli, George Frideric Handel, but also some less famous artists such as Giovanni Verocai and Giuseppe Boniventi. The intermezzi, recitatives, and some of the arias and duets are known to have been composed by Antonio Bioni. The music performed in 1728 in Silesia thus belonged to the most recent Italian repertoire.

R. Theobald, ‘Adels-, Schul- und Wander-Oper. Beispiele für Formen und Stoffe des schlesischen Musiktheaters im 18. Jahrhundert’, Jahrbuch für Schlesische Kultur und Geschichte, vol. 53/54, 2015, pp. 235–268; A. Markuszewska, ‘Pasticci Incorporating Music by Nicola Porpora: A Case Study of the Breslau Griselda (1728)’, in M. Jonášová and T. Volek (eds), L’opera italiana – tra l’originale e il pasticcio (L’opera italiana nei territori boemi durante il Settecento VI), Praga, Academia, 2021 (forthcoming).

What is particularly notable about the above-quoted note is not so much the fact that it was the first pasticcio to be performed in Breslau (a city with a very brief operatic history, whose public opera theatre had only been inaugurated in 1725

See J. Spáčilová, ‘Počátky opery ve Slezsku – současný stav pramenů’ [The origins of the Opera in Silesia – the Current State of Sources], Musicologica Brunensia, vol. 51, no. 2, 2016, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315174387_Pocatky_opery_ve_Slezsku_-_soucasny_stav_pramenu (assessed 6 October 2021). K. Węgrzyn-Klissowska, ‘Opera włoska we Wrocławiu (1725–1734) i jej związki z innymi ośrodkami muzycznymi’ [The Italian Opera in Wrocław (1725–1734) and Its Links to Other Music Centres], Italica Wratislaviensia, no. 5, 2014, p. 129, http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-b207f021-67ec-4924-bd15-6b231d695550 (assessed 6 October 2021) discusses it as a piece representing an interesting period of Italian opera reception in the provinces of the Habsburg Empire. Cf. also J. Spáčilová, ‘Orlandini’s Antigona (vendicata): Transformation of a Venetian Opera on its Transalpine Journey’, Musicologica Brunensia, vol. 53 (Supplementum), pp. 227–248, 2018, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332384371_Orlandini’s_Antigona_vendicata_Transformation_of_a_Venetian_opera_on_its_transalpine_journey (accessed 6 October 2021).

), but the author’s comment that a selection of arias by so many different composers, differing in style and character, could provide the audience with particular aesthetic pleasure. Varietas thus appears to have been the constitutive principle and determinant of the pasticcio genre, on which the audience’s pleasure would also depend. Was the relation between pasticcio and pleasure only viewed in this way in Breslau and similar centres, which, despite their splendid history and musical culture, could not rival the then European opera hubs such as Venice, Naples, Rome, and London? In those minor centres, the selection of arias that had already proved successful elsewhere was frequently determined by financial consideration (it was cheaper to stage a pasticcio than a new opera). Since many members of the audience could not afford long journeys, the local theatre was the only place where they could become acquainted with the latest musical trends. But perhaps the principle of varietas and the resulting pleasure was common to pasticcios, also those produced in Europe’s operatic hubs. What specifically did that pleasure consist in?

The present paper is the first attempt in musicological literature dedicated to pasticcios to analyse their relation to pleasure; for this reason, I do not claim to have reached any ultimate conclusions in this area.

What components made up the pleasure offered to the audience in pasticcios? And, finally, are the pasticcio practice and pleasure in fact historically conditioned and limited or do they possibly demonstrate some timeless qualities? In order to answer these questions, I will use the example of a pasticcio staged in Venice, Europe’s indisputable operatic heartland at that time, in the city’s most splendid Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo. It was there that Armida abbandonata (libr. Giovanni Boldini, music by Nicola Porpora, Leonardo Vinci, Leonardo Leo, and Benedetto Marcello) was produced at the end of the 1729 carnival, soon after the Breslau Griselda.

The carnival season of 1728/1729 in Venice featured many extremely interesting productions. The Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo staged two operas by Nicola Porpora, Ezio and Semiramide riconosciuta, as well as Catone in Utica with music by Leonardo Leo – all of which were publicly acclaimed.

Diario ordinario, no. 1784, pp. 5–6 and no. 1802, p. 9.

The Teatro San Cassiano presented Giacomelli’s Gianguir and Orlandini’s Adelaide, and the Teatro San Moisè – two different operas by Albinoni: Le due rivali in amore and Filandro. Other theatres also prepared their own entertainment.

E. Selfridge-Field, A New Chronology of Venetian Opera and related Genres, 1660-1760, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2007.

The city’s venues hosted excellent singers: Nicolò Grimaldi, Domenico Gizzi, Giovanni Paita, Francesco Bernardi (Senesino), Faustina Bordoni, and Lucia Facchinelli. Carlo Broschi’s Venetian debut was first eagerly awaited, and later vigorously debated: ‘One only talks here about the operas, and Farinello has exerted such a fascination that, were the Turks to come to the Gulf now, we’d let them make a landing quite undisturbed for the fear of missing even two ariettas,’

‘On ne parle ici que des opéras, et on est si entesté de Farinello, que si les Turcs étoient dans le Golfe, on les laisseroit débarquer tranquillement pour ne pas perdre deux ariettes.’ A. Conti, Lettere da Venezia a Madame La Comtesse de Caylus 1727–1729. Con l’aggiunta di un Discorso sullo Stato della Francia, S. Mamy (ed.), Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 2003, p. 230. Conti himself preferred the voices of Faustina Bordoni and Senesino to that of Broschi, but he added that Farinelli had so many supporters in Venice at that time that one was not allowed to say anything bad about him.

wrote Antonio Conti in a letter to Madame de Caylus of 30 October 1728. At another point he apologised to the countess for not sending her the arias by Porpora he had promised to her. He explained the delay by the Venetian copyists being currently overworked.

Conti, Lettere, p. 238.

It was on the last evening of this carnival frenzy that L’abbandono di Armida was premiered at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo. In Diario ordinario of 16 March we read that the new drama was performed just once and was ‘applauded by a countless number of aristocrats and the people’.

‘[…] appludito da infinita Nobiltà e Popolo’.

On the title page, the composition is introduced as a trattenimento scenico, and in the dedication the librettist Giovanni Boldini uses the phrase festa teatrale. The work is indeed shorter than a typical opera, since it consists of two sections rather than the customary three acts. Its more compact dimensions notwithstanding, it is otherwise a typical pasticcio incorporating arias by various composers and created, as Boldini explains in the Argomento of the printed libretto, ‘a solo fine di rinovare il piacere’.

‘[…] for the sole purpose of renewing pleasure’, L’abbanodno di Armida, trattenimento scenico da cantarsi Teatro Grimani S G. Grisostomo nell’ultima sera del Carnevale 1729, p. 5.

In fact in the dedication and Argomento for his L’abbandono di Armida, Boldini uses the Italian words for pleasure, piacere and aggradimento, several times. The former appears in his dedication of the pasticcio to illustrious Venetian ladies, the expression of gratitude for gracing the theatre with their presence (‘il piacer di decorare colla vostra presenza questo famosissimo teatro’) and for preferring the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo to the city’s other stages. The dedication itself, though maintained in the conventional style typical of that age, is an exercise in paying compliments, which are meant to be pleasant by nature.

‘Voi Eccellentissime Dame, che illustri d’ogni fregio, ricolme d’ogni virtude, e d’ogni grazia adorne spargete da questo Cielo, sotto cui traeste la gloriosa Vostra origine, que’raggi d’invidiabil splendore, che ovunque giunge sà ecclissare qualunque altra luce, e sovra tutti scintillare d’un lume, che abbaglia e piace, Voi dico con più adequata ragione siete argomento di Eterni Annali, non che d’un’informe breve pagina, in cui col solito tributo d’Encomj rachiuder io possa la vasta estensione del singolar Vostro Merito.’ G. Boldini, L’abbandono di Armida. Trattenimento scenico da cantarsi nel famosissmo Teatro Grimani di S. Gio. Grisostomo nell’ultima sera del carnevale dell’anno 1729, Venezia, Carlo Bonarigo, p. 3.

The word recurs in the passage about ‘questo nuovo piacere’ (i.e. the pasticcio) that he has prepared for his audience. As the author also points out,

this new entertainment is an attempt to sum up your [i.e. the Venetian noblewomen’s] carnival pleasures by repeating much of what you have been kind enough to enjoy, and mixing it in various forms with other [pleasures] with equal kindness which may satisfy you.

‘[…] questo nuovo divertimento cerca di chiudere gl’estremi carnevaleschi vostri piaceri, replicandovi molto di quello di cui vi siete benignamente compiaciute, ed intrecciandolo in varia forma con quell’altro di più di cui con eguale compatimento compiacervi possiate.’ Boldini, L’abbandono di Armida, pp. 23.

Boldini mentions pleasure again, even more distinctly, in the Argomento of the same work:

All the rest of this brief little piece serves exclusively as a link between certain Stage Harmonies, and, in a well-thought-out manner, between these arias which were composed and performed at other times, places, and in different circumstances, and which are now re-introduced solely with a view to renewing pleasure and attaining perfection, as long as possible, for a greater shared pleasure. The balli are presented with the same intent. Performed on other occasions, they are now introduced anew to repeat the shared pleasure [emphases mine].

‘Tutto il resto del breve giro di questa picciola Composizione serve solamente a connettere con qualche Scenica Armonia, e regolata ragione quell’Arie, che in altri tempi, luochi, e circostanze diverse si sono concepite ed eseguite, e che ora sono nuovamente introdotte a solo fine di rinovare il piacere, e restringere a commune maggior aggradimento, quanto è possibile, la perfezione. L’istessa intenzione si è seguitata ne’Balli, che pure in altre occasioni esseguiti, di presente son nuovamente introdotti per replicarne l’universale piacere.’ Boldini, p. 5.

To sum up, these statements leave us in no doubt as to pleasure being the purpose of the pasticcio, and it was a kind of pleasure meant to be shared. Crucially, to an eighteenth-century audience that pleasure consisted, first and foremost, in the possibility to listen again to what they had enjoyed most during the given season, combined with sources of pleasure from the previous seasons. It therefore seems that the pleasure of a pasticcio depended, as suggested above, on varietas, the fusion of many styles by different composers, of the most recent numbers with old favourites.

The vast and complex topic of the concept of pleasure has been left aside in this paper. As Rowan Boyson aptly observed in her monograph on pleasure in the works of the English poet William Wordsworth: ‘Pleasure is a remarkably mobile term, moving between different intellectual and theoretical domains with great ease. […] pleasure appeared in almost all areas of British, French and German thought, from theology to the luxury debates, epistemology, science and aesthetics, to education and the new political economy. In particular, pleasure is the common ground of both eighteenth-century aesthetics and political philosophy.’ Cf. R. Boyson, Wordsworth and the Enlightenment Idea of Pleasure, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p. 1. The concept is most strongly associated with the figure of Epicurus. For further reading and bibliographic references see Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pleasure/ (accessed 6 October 2021).

There are several consequences of this observation. Firstly, unlike many present-day listeners, the audience could distinguish between the styles of the various composers active in the given period and derived a special kind of pleasure from such comparisons. Secondly, recalling the older arias may be viewed as part of the gradual process of the emergence of music history. One may also venture the thesis that the pasticcio provided space for stylistic experiments, which is especially evident in pasticcios produced in minor centres on the margins of the operatic heartlands, where, as in the Griselda discussed in the opening of this paper, elements of the older style (for instance, arias by Francesco Gasparini) were combined with those by Vinci or Porpora. ‘Replaying’ what had been most to the audience’s taste during a given carnival (a kind of musical resume) shows that the impresario or theatre director (the poet Boldini in the case of Armida) attentively observed his audience, understood its tastes and followed them for financial benefit, but also in order to uphold his theatre’s reputation as a fashionable and popular one. On the other hand, in an era when the modern means of music reproduction and playback were unknown, but the natural human need for contact with favourite music did exist, the pasticcio was one of the few available ways to satisfy this need. Another option was to order copies of selected compositions and have them performed in private, by oneself or with the participation of other amateur and professional musicians. As Conti’s remark suggests, however, getting hold of copies of works during a successful carnival could often take time and effort.

Let us now consider what the varietas of the music selected for the pasticcio consisted in, on the example of the Venetian production. The arias chosen for this spectacle have been listed in the table below.

Table 1

Arias in L’abbandono di Armida (Venice 1729), their performers and sources

Scene	Incipit	Sung by	Borrowed from
I,1	Pastori cantate	coro	?
I,1	La fortuna è un pronto ardir	Tancredi / Nicolini	Text originally from Il trionfo della Fedeltà (1708) by A. Scarlatti, previously also sung by Nicolini
I,2	Che dolce foco in petto	Armida / Fachinelli	B. Marcello, Arianna
I,3	Fin che per te mi palpita	Erminia / Negri	Porpora, Ezio
I, 4	Un certo non sò che	Rinaldo / Broschi	Leo, Catone in Utica?
I,5	Se dalle stelle tu non sei guida	Ubaldo / Gizzi	Didone abbandonata, Porpora? owing to Gizzi’s participation
I,6	Se d’ira armato vuoi cimentarmi	Clorinda / Giorgi	Leo, Catone in Utica; extended in comparison with the original.
I,8	Sò che pietà non hai	Rinaldo / Broschi	Leo, Catone in Utica
II,2	Quando saprai chi sono	Tancredi / Nicolini	Didone abbandonata, Porpora?
II, 3	Quel vapor che in valle impura	Rinaldo / Broschi	Porpora, Semiramide
II,4	Bei labbri ch’Amore	Ubaldo / Gizzi	Vinci, Farnace In Vinci’s Farnace (Rome 1724) this aria opens with the words Bei labri, but the further structure of the text is different. Nevertheless, it is possible that Vinci’s music was adopted to suit the new words. The pasticcio text of this aria is, however, most similar to the later text of Metastasio’s cantata, La Gelosia, music for which was notably written in 1746 by Porpora. – its text resembles that of Metastasio’s later cantata
II,6	Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde	Clorinda / Giorgi	Vinci, Gismondo re di Polonia
II,7	Che quell Cor quell Ciglio altera	Erminia / Negri	Porpora, Semiramide
II,9	Ma gia scoperti	Armida / Fachinelli	Marcello, Arianna
II,10	Cerva in bosco se l’impiaga	Rinaldo / Broschi	Leo, Catone in Utica
II,11	Solo nel vero	coro	?

Scholars attribute the compilation of this pasticcio to Antonio Pollarolo.

R. Strohm, ‘Italienische Opernarien des frühen Settecento (1720-1730)’, Analecta Musicologica, vol. 16, 1976, p. 267.

The arias he made use of come from Porpora’s Ezio and Semiramide, Leo’s Catone in Utica, Vinci’s Gismondo re di Polonia, possibly also from his Farnace as well as Didone abbandonata in a version written more likely by Porpora than by Albinoni, considering the presence in Armida’s cast of Gizzi and Nicolini, who also sang together in Porpora’s Didone abbandonata staged in 1725 in Reggio Emilia.

Strohm pointed to Albinoni, cf. R. Strohm, ‘Italienische Opernarien’, p. 267.

To this list of composers we should add, I believe, also Benedetto Marcello, though his name does not appear in any text on this subject known to me to date. Marcello’s arias come from his Arianna, intreccio scenico musicale for five voices (to a libretto by Vincenzo Cassani, 1727). The aria Che dolce foco in petto was also used by the composer in his cantata Arianna abbandonata. Two arias are of dubious authorship: La fortuna è un pronto ardir and Bei labbri ch’Amore. The latter may have been taken from Vinci’s Farnace. The text of the former originally comes from Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Trionfo della fedeltà (1708), featuring Nicolini, but we do not know who wrote the music used in the pasticcio (it was possibly Pollarolo; the use of Scarlatti’s old setting is unlikely).

Let us take a brief look at the following arias: -

Che dolce foco by Benedetto Marcello

-

Fin che per te mi palpita and Quel vapor che in valle impura by Nicola Porpora

I have selected two arias by Nicola Porpora, whose music has been my main field of study within the Pasticcio project. The musical excerpts from two arias by Porpora attached to this paper perfectly illustrate my thesis that varietas was the constitutive principle of the pasticcio. The two arias differ in both type of affection and its musical settings. Cf. the music examples.

-

Sò che pietà non hai by Leonardo Leo

-

Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde by Leonardo Vinci

These arias were written by five different composers. Most of the operas they come from were premiered in Venice, in the same season or a short time before the date of the pasticcio’s compilation. We are certain with regard to their provenance. Apart from two arias for Farinelli (Sò che pietà non hai, Quel vapor che in valle impura) they belonged to the repertoires of different singers. What could the audience have liked about them, and what did their varietas consist in?

The first of the arias is Che dolce foco by Benedetto Marcello, who, significantly in my context, wrote music for his own pleasure. In Marcello’s intreccio scenico the aria Con dolce foco is sung by the eponymous Arianna. Abandoned by Theseus and betrayed by her sister Phaedra, who has defected with her beloved, Arianna grieves over her lost love. Bacchus falls in love with her at first sight and helps her bring back the boat that carries the fugitive lovers. At first, Arianna intends to avenge the insult to her love and her sister’s betrayal, but the divine nature of her new lover, his magnanimity and greatness, fill her heart with a new, nobler feeling: ‘m’infiamma / Un certo nuovo ardor che più non sente / Di basso affetto, e di terren desio. / Sopra di me m’innalzo / E quasi il suolo obblio’ [‘I am inflamed / by a new fire that makes me feel / the base emotions and earthly lust no more. / I rise above myself / and nearly forget the earth’]. These words are followed by Arianna’s aria Che dolce foco, with the following text:

Che dolce foco in petto	What sweet fire in my breast
Oltre l’usato io sento	Different from what I used to feel,
Che in vece di tormento,	Which instead of torment
Gioja mi dà e diletto,	Offers me joy and delight
E mi consola.	And it consoles me.
E se di nuovo ardore	And as I feel this new ardour
Sento quest’alma piena,	Fill my soul
Desio, ma senza pena,	I desire, but without pain
Amo, ma dal mio core	And I love, but from my heart
Il duol s’invola.	The pain flies away.

In the pasticcio this aria is performed by Armida (I, 2). The whole scene is extremely sensuous. In the recitative, the sorceress describes the beauty of the nature that surrounds the lovers: streams, breezes, and flowers, which provide a wondrous backdrop for her love for Rinaldo. The latter admits he is extremely happy and admires his beloved’s beautiful face above anything else: ‘Oh me felice. Più che gl’ori, e gl’ostri / Più che I ruscelli, più che l’erbe, e I fiori / Che quì natura ed arte a gara unio, / Il sembiante d’Armida è il voto mio.’It is in such an idyllic atmosphere that Armida sings the aria in question. Notably, while for Arianna this aria marks the onset of a new love, for Armida it will prove to provide love’s final chord.

In Marcello’s version this is an F-major number in the allegro tempo for string orchestra. This extremely cheerful setting starts with a ritornello clearly emphasising the main key and featuring in two opening bars a descending motif of long notes ornamented by two grace notes. The motif is later repeated an octave lower. What seems important in the following part of the ritornello is the use of short rhythmic values, the simple harmonic pattern and fast dynamic changes from piano to forte or forte to piano. The ritornello offers the impression of jumping that will symbolise Arianna’s joy. The vocal part takes over the melody of the ritornello. In section A, attention is attracted to multiple repetitions of the words gioia (‘joy’) and diletto (‘delight’). The new love, described as ‘sweet fire’, gives Arianna a pleasure she did not know before. In section B a coloratura (consisting of several repetitions of a descending and ascending scale passage) is used on the words il duol s’invola (‘the pain flies away’). One might say that this last phrase brings an Epicurean sonic vision of pleasure as the avoidance of distress.

Following directly on Marcello’s aria was Porpora’s Fin che per te mi palpita sung by Erminia, to whom Rinaldo had once vowed love and faith. In Porpora’s Ezio the latter aria was entrusted to Onoria, in love (without reciprocation) with the eponymous general but forced by the emperor to marry the barbarian Attila, who, albeit not a worthy match for the emperor’s sister, was nevertheless politically useful. In both Ezio and the pasticcio, this aria was sung by Antonia Negri. The text is as follows:

Fin che per te mi palpita	For as long as my heart beats
Timido in petto il cor,	Shily for you in my chest,
Accendersi d’amor	This soul is unable
Non sà quest’alma.	To be inflamed by love.
Nell’amorosa face	In love’s radiance
Qual pace	What peace
Ho da sperar	Can I hope for
Se comincio ad amar	If I begin to love
Priva di calma.	Deprived of peace.

This slow-tempo aria (a tempo lento) in the E-flat major key is scored for the 1^st and 2^nd violins playing in unison, violas and b.c. Though the composer highlighted the words alma in section A and pace in section B by means of extensive coloraturas, the whole number may be described as a trill aria since the accumulation of trills in both the orchestral and vocal parts is so great that it pushes all the other aspects of the music to the background, at least at the start. The use of trills is naturally well-justified since they perfectly express Erminia’s emotional states: her trembling heart, anxiety and reluctance to trust a lover who has already broken his promise once. Erminia’s ‘trill aria’ is thus the very opposite of Armida’s love-praising aria that precedes it, not only in terms of musical setting (tempo, key, affection), but also because it represents a different, darker face of love, lacking certainty, trust, and peace (that is, deprived of the calma e pace – peace and calm – so popular among Italian librettists in that period, cf. Musical example 1).

Another interesting aria, Leo’s Sò che pietà non hai, sung by Rinaldo, comes in the pasticcio after the aria of rage performed by another female protagonist, Clorinda (Se d’ira armato vuoi cimentarmi), who reveals to Armida that Rinaldo has betrayed her. When Rinaldo/Farinelli sings this aria at the close of the pasticcio’s first section, he has already confronted both women in love with him, and he ventures a reflection on the power of love, while expressing his deep anguish at being rejected by angry Armida, whom he loves. He accuses her of inconsideration and ruthlessness, singing the following text:

Sò che pietà non hai,	I know you have no pity
E pur ti deggio amar:	But must love you all the same:
Dove apprendesti mai	Where did you learn
L’arte d’innamorar	This art of arousing passions
Quando m’offendi?	With which you insult me?
Se compatir non sai,	If you can’t show compassion
Se amor non vive in te,	And there’s no love in you,
Perche crudel perche	Why, cruel one, o why,
Così m’accendi?	You inflame this passion in me?

Composed by Leo in B-flat major, in the larghetto e cantabile tempo, this aria offers the desirable contrast of affections after Clorinda’s number. The first and second violins play in unison against a constant metrical bass, presenting a melody made up of tiny motifs, appoggiaturas, triplets, and chromatic turns. In this aria Rinaldo presents himself as a tender and suffering lover, while the composer takes this opportunity to demonstrate Farinelli’s skills, his vocal range, in a part which traditionally abounds in leaps, ascending trills, coloraturas calling for a long breath and based on sequential setting of motifs.

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 6 October 2021); A. Desler, ‘“Il novello Orfeo” Farinelli: vocal profile, aesthetics, rhetoric’, PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2014.

The second aria by Porpora, Quel vapor che in valle impura, originally comes from that composer’s Semiramide riconosciuta:

Quel vapor che in valle impura	The fog that has in the impure valley
S’inalzò da ignobil Fonte	Risen from that ignoble source
Gli Astri oscura	And hides the stars from view,
Adombra il Monte,	Conceals the mountain
Sì colora in facia al Sol.	And is coloured on the side of the Sun.
Ma disciolto a poco a poco	But dissolved, bit by bit?
O dell’aure è scherzo è gioco,	It now becomes a plaything of the winds
O ritorna in grembo al Suol.	And now returns into the womb of the earth.
Quel…	The…

This aria, which could be referred to as ‘Rinaldo’s awakening’ (tantamount to leaving Armida, whom he now calls ‘a deceptive siren’), shows how, on hearing the ‘call of the sword’ again, the hero feels his love turn into cold ash, which, he claims, can only be buried or scattered by winds and water. A knight’s duties and glory call him. In Quel vapor he realises he has fallen victim to an amorous illusion that has concealed the truth, light and the earth from him like a fog that fills the entire valley. But the fog will not stay here forever.

In Semiramide riconosciuta, this aria was sung by Farinelli cast in the role of Mirteo (III, 11). Written in the key of E major, again for a string orchestra, the piece lacks a tempo indication, but its character suggests a moderate or even slow pace. The text was treated by Porpora in a highly illustrative manner. The initial ritornello undulates with a falling and rising melody which reflects the movement of fog over the valley, which rises slowly and lazily. The repeated notes are meant to wake Rinaldo up and free him from the slavery of love which has kept him from following his manly vocation. The trills used at the end of the ritornello evoke the playful winds that will disperse the fog and let the sunshine in. Porpora, well aware of how he could bring out the merits of his pupil’s voice, included in this aria those elements that the castrato was famous for, such as: scale passages, trills, leaps, and repetitions of individual notes. All this contributed to the audience’s excitement, enthusiasm, admiration for the singer (bordering on frenzy), and sometimes also amazement. All in all, it was pleasure for the senses and without any doubt one of Porpora’s most sensual arias (see Musical example 2).

In our own times, this aria was first performed on 14 May 2021 during a concert held as part of the conference Operatic Pasticcio in Eighteenth-Century Opera: Work Concept, Performance Practice, Digital Humanities in the splendid interpretation of countertenor Valer Sabadus accompanied by Capella Cracoviensis under Jan Tomasz Adamus. A recording of this concert is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GXKx4XeHuQ (accessed 6 October 2021).

The last of the arias analysed here, taken from Leonardo Vinci’s opera Gismondo re di Polonia staged in 1727 in Rome, was originally sung by the Lithuanian prince Primislao, personated in the Eternal City by Antonio Barbieri. In the Venetian pasticcio, this number is taken up by Clorinda (Catterina Giorgi). Here is the text of the aria:

Nave altera che in mezzo all’onde	The proud ship in the midst of the ocean,
Nell’orror di note oscura	In the terror of a dark night,
Agitata è da due venti	Playing between two hurricanes,
Ferma stà e non sà	Remains constant even when it knows not
Qual di lor la spinga al porto.	Which of the two winds will bring it to harbour.
Così l’alma che si confonde	Just so, the soul is caught up in thought
Fra due stimoli possenti	When it is torn between two mighty forces
Pensa fra sè – qual è Qual che giova al suo Conforto.	Which of the shall bring it to salvation. English translation of the aria text after Leonardo Vinci, Gismondo re di Polonia, Parnasus CD 9120104870017, CD booklet.

Vinci’s number is a typical aria di tempesta. Composed in the key of G major, apart from the strings it also calls, unlike the previous ones, for the use of an oboe. Scored as andante non presto, it depicts the emotions of a person torn between two passions and impulses as the struggle of a ship tossed by opposite winds. In Primislao’s case, the choice was between the common good (end of war and peace between Sarmatia and Lithuania) and his own pride and glory as a Lithuanian prince. In the pasticcio, this political dilemma is transferred into the more traditional sphere of conflict between love and duty in Erminia’s heart.

The above-presented selection of arias confirms what we already know from the study of eighteenth-century operas and pasticcios. Arias were chosen by pasticcio compilers so as to represent contrasted affections, reflected in differences of key, mode, tempo, instrumentation, and melodic type. In the cases analysed here, the original arias perfectly fitted into the new dramatic context. They were meant to illustrate a wide spectrum of human emotions; in Armida, they constituted a study of love, as I have shown below. Singers’ individual talents were always taken into consideration. They were given opportunity to display their vocal mastery and acting skills. While in a traditional opera written by one composer one may appreciate his or her ingenuity in musically representing various conventional affections, a pasticcio added another major element: the chance to compare the styles of different composers. The selection of arias for pasticcios reflects most clearly the audiences’ tastes and musical preferences in a given period, thus providing an incredibly rich and valuable source of information on this subject.

It seems, however, that other additional but no less significant aspects of pleasure coexisted in the pasticcios with those listed above. Importantly, traditional operas also featured the same qualities of pleasure.

ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS OF PLEASURE

In his treatise on happiness, the Polish philosopher Władysław Tatarkiewicz aptly observes that pleasure is a complex state to which many different stimuli are known to contribute.

W. Tatarkiewicz, O szczęściu [On Happiness], Warszawa, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1990, pp. 73–79.

This observation can perfectly be applied to the kind of pleasure offered by the Venetian pasticcios. Let us begin with the place of presentation, that is, Venice itself. In his paper on the pasticcio, Roberto Pagano describes Venice as a sort of ‘Mecca of pleasure’,

R. Pagano, ‘Il “Pasticcio” settecentesco e una sua singolare propaggine nell’area della satira’, in G. Pitarresi (ed.), Il Pasticcio. Responsabilità d’autore e collaborazione nell’opera dell’età barocca. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Reggio Calabria, 2–3 ottobre 2009), Reggio Calabria, Laruffa Editore, 2011, p. 3.

particularly for the numerous foreign visitors to the city. Many of them left behind descriptions of Venice, full of admiration, in which they dedicated much space to carnival pastimes. One of those delighted visitors was the Polish queen dowager Marie Casimire Sobieska, who arrived in Venice at the height of the carnival frenzy on 19 January 1699, thirty years before the staging of L’abbandono d’Armida:

Again on the subject of Venice. Can anyone ever imagine what Venice is? You have to see it first. It is the most beautiful, the most astonishing thing one can ever see: all the imposing buildings and magnificent churches. In short, I am not at all surprised that so many princes leave their native lands to come here, and that they come again and again. People here are very honest and they endeavour to please. And when it comes to life here, there is good food, though bread and wine are disappointing. Meat at the butchers’ is very dear, but fowl and venison do not cost more than in Poland, for example two capons cost six livres, which is sixteen and a half livres if one pays in ducats. There is great liberty in manners and customs. One can receive guests when one is so inclined or decide not to when one has other claims on one’s time… All in all, I truly believe Venice is a wonder of the world.

The National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk, 695, op. 1/260 c. 23 v., in A. Markuszewska, Festa and Music at the Court of Marie Casimire Sobieska in Rome (1699–1714), transl. A. Gutowska and T. Zymer, Berlin, Peter Lang, 2021, p. 73.

The splendour of the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, the city’s most elegant theatre, was another component of that pleasure, as also was the topic of this pasticcio. L’abbandono di Armida draws on a motif from Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata, one perfectly familiar to the Italian audiences, concerning the love of the beautiful, compelling and at the same time dangerous Saracen enchantress Armida and Rinaldo, a Christian knight. The story of Armida enjoyed incredible popularity among opera authors in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

Armida was the protagonist of about a hundred operatic libretti and ballets in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Several examples of drammi per musica composed before Antonio Vivaldi’s opera have been listed below: O. Vernizzi: Armida abbandonata (Bologna 1623); C. Monteverdi, [Armida abbandonata], 1626; B. Ferrari, L’Armida (Venice 1639); Marazzoli, L’amore trionfante dello sdegno (Ferrara 1641); M. Scacchi, Armida abbandonata (Warsaw 1641); J.B. Lully, Armide (Paris 1686); C. Pallavicino, La Gierusalemme liberata (Venice 1687); A. Chiochiolo, L’Armida (Rovigo 1694); Orgiani, L’Armida (Mantua 1695); Ph. de Bourbon, Renaud et Armide (Paris 1705); G. M. Ruggieri, Armida abbandonata (Venice 1707); G. Boniventi, Armida al campo (Venice 1708); G. F. Handel, Rinaldo (London 1711); G. Rampini, Armida in Damasco (Venice 1711); G. M. Buini, Armida abbandonata (Bologna 1716); D. Sarro, Armida al campo (Naples 1718). For more on this subject, see T. Carter, Tasso Torquato, Grove Music Online, https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.O004675 (accessed 6 October 2021).

providing them with an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

The popularity of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1582) could only be equalled by that of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso and Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il pastor fido. From the mid-seventeenth century onwards, the list of major literary inspirations for operatic plots was extended so as to include French dramas by e.g. Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine.

There were several reasons for such a situation: Armida fascinated audiences with her extraordinary Oriental beauty and her masterful command of the arte amandi. She was the embodiment of a passionate woman, but also of a clever manipulator. She posed a threat to men, but she inspired their imagination. The tale of Armida was particularly popular in Venice, as Melania Bucciarelli demonstrates.

The geographic location of the Serenissima Repubblica meant that it came into contact with many cultures and retained for many decades the status of an intermediary between the East and the West. Its natural openness to the sea resulted in economic, political, and cultural contacts with faraway countries. Intense trade caused many different ethnic groups to settle in Venice. Contact with those groups led to the emergence of certain cultural myths. ‘The other’ inspired natural curiosity, but also bred fear related to the constant and quite real threat of war, which rather frequently broke out between Venice and, among others, the Ottoman Empire. These were the reasons why the figure of Armida haunted the imagination of many a Venetian artist and impresario. As Bucciarelli aptly observes, ‘[t]he result is that the audience, immersed in the enchanted and unreal world of Armida, is constantly reminded (at a subliminal level) of an ongoing, non-fictional conflict that separates Muslims from Christians, East and West, and, ultimately, men and women. These conflicts have no resolution; they are inevitable and irremediable.’ M. Bucciarelli, ‘Venice and the East: Operatic Readings of Tasso’s Armida in Early Eighteenth-Century Venice’, in M. Bucciarelli and B. Joncus (eds), Music as Social and Cultural Practice: Essays in Honour of Reinhard Strohm, Woodbridge, Boydell & Brewer, 2007.

In 1729, when L’abbandono di Armida was presented, Venice enjoyed a spell of peace and political neutrality introduced at the beginning of the century by Doge Alvise II Mocenigo. As we learn from contemporary accounts, the audience at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo, especially the female spectators to whom that work had been dedicated, derived much pleasure from following the amorous vicissitudes of Armida and the other protagonists, relishing the sight of her delightful palace and garden (giardino di delizie).

Boldini incorporates the regular points of the Armida story, such as Ubaldo’s finding of Rinaldo and the latter’s escape from under his mistress’s spell. He combines this theme with the equally popular episode of love between Erminia and Tancredi. The librettist also adds new elements, such as those of Erminia’s love for Rinaldo and Clorinda’s for Tancredi. He thus introduces a maximally enhanced love motif presented in multiple variants: love as physical, sensual pleasure, the torture of suspicions and jealousy, a sense of unfulfillment, being abandoned, and the lust for revenge. Love is what motivates the three female protagonists (Armida, Clorinda, and Erminia) as well as the three men, who represent the type of eroe effeminato much criticised by intellectuals at that time.

L.A. Muratori, Della perfetta poesia italiana, Venezia, S. Coleti, 1724. Modern publications on this subject include B. Forment, ‘From Effeminato to Virtuoso: The Inscription of Gender Patterns in Alessandro Scarlatti’s “Telemaco” (1718)’, Rivista Italiana di Musicologia, no. 49, 2005, pp. 85–112.

Presumably also favourable to the amorous atmosphere of the spectacle were the stage sets by the Valeriani brothers, Giuseppe and Domenico, which showed Armida’s splendid palace and provided an opportunity for presenting theatrical meraviglie on the stage. The latter were yet another component of the pleasure.

The most important component, however, were the voices of the singers and, as we already know, the music incorporated into the pasticcio. As the printed libretto informs us, the San Giovanni Grisostomo signed up the following excellent artists:

Armida, in love with Rinaldo, his mistress – Lucia Fachinelli

Erminia, Rinaldo and Tancredi’s mistress – Antonia Negri

Clorinda, Tancredi’s mistress – Catterina Giorgi

Tancredi, Erminia’s lover – Nicola Grimaldi Cavaliere della Croce di S. Marco

There is a substantial number of studies on the castrati, their vocal art and impact on the audience. I will only quote one publication discussing various aspects of their art: M. Feldmann, The Castrato. The Reflections on Natures and Kinds, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006. On eighteenth-century singers and their voices, cf. G.B. Mancini, Pensieri e riflessioni sopra il canto figurato, Wien, Ghelen, 1774.

Rinaldo, Armida’s lover – Carlo Broschi detto Farinello

Ubaldo, Erminia’s secret lover – Domenico Gizzi

Without individually discussing the voices of such highly regarded soloists as Fachinelli, Nicolini, Gizzi, and Farinelli,

The key period publications on this subject are: P.F. Tosi, Opinioni de’cantori antichi e moderni, Bologna, L. dalla Volpe, 1723; Mancini, Pensieri e riflessioni. There is already a substantial scholarly literature dedicated to these artists, to mention only the studies by Desler, ‘“Il novello Orfeo” Farinelli’; Desler, ‘From Castrato to Bass: The Late Roles of Niccolò Grimaldi “Nicolini”’, in C. Haworth and L. Colton (eds), Gender, Age and Musical Creativity, London, Routledge, 2016, pp. 61–82. A special issue of Journal of Eighteenth-Century Music was dedicated to Farinelli in 2005.

it should be stressed that Farinelli with his four arias (as compared to only two for the other soloists) was the unquestionable star of the performance. What is more, Giovanni Carlo Bonlini confirms in Le glorie della poesia e della musica… that the pasticcio was made up of arias selected by the singers themselves for their own pleasure: ‘This drama was created so as to put together various arias which provided major pleasure in other drammi and have been selected as pleasant by the singers themselves.’

‘Questo Drama fu tessuto, per connettere alcune Ariette, ch’hanno riportato maggior aggradimento in altri Drami, e queste scielte a piacere degl’istessi Cantanti, e fu solamente rappresentato l’ultima Notte del Carnevale cadente […].’ G.C. Bonlini, Le glorie della poesia e della musica contenute nell’esatta notizia de’teatri della citta di Venezia e nel catalogo purgatissimo de’dramma musicali quivi sin’hora rappresentati, Venezia, Carlo Bonarigo, 1730, pp. 212–213.

We thus learn again that pasticcios were compiled out of arias that had already proved successful, and their revival was to give pleasure not just to the audience but to the singers themselves. As we know, the greater pleasure the artists have in performing music, the more enjoyable this music is for the audience.

***

We can see that the pleasure of contact with the pasticcio functioned simultaneously on many levels. What attracted the audience was the place of performance (Venice at the peak point of carnival frenzy, right before its end), the opera house, the flattering dedication to Venetian ladies, the libretto saturated with various affections, most of which explored various shades of love, as well as the excellent music subordinated to the principle of varietas or/and ‘difference of taste’. It is that last element in particular that links Venice as the centre of the then operatic life in Europe to Breslau as a local stage.

Through pasticcios the audience experienced music it liked to listen to, one with which it was familiar (a significant asset). In Carlo Lanfossi’s words, this allowed listeners to practise their music memory.

C. Lanfossi, ‘Listening to the Past: Eighteenth-Century Pasticci and the Memory of Italian Opera’, paper presented at the digital conference Opera Pasticcio in Eighteenth-Century Opera: Work Concept, Performance Practice, Digital Humanities, Warsaw, 13–14 May 2021. Lanfossi also emphasised the special place of listening and music memory in creating pasticcios, describing this genre as a kind of ‘listening inscription’.

What is more, pasticcios were performed by singers who would frequently carry the audience away into ecstasy or aesthetic frenzy. Finally, they most certainly offered pleasure.

To conclude, let me tackle one more question: namely, whether the pleasure of watching and listening to pasticcios was historically confined to one period. I do not mean the changing musical styles and audience’s tastes, nor the idea of the music work, which has been conceived since the nineteenth century as an original concept by one artist, the expression of his or her individual voice. What I mean is pasticcio composition as practised in our own times, taking advantage of new media and streaming services, such as the extremely popular Spotify, where we can create our own playlists comprising favourite songs, arias, or complete works. Aware as I am of all the differences, this practice nevertheless strikes me as one of the contemporary forms of pasticcio making, in which everyone can arrange and compile their own pasticcios, tailored to the individual needs and emotions: one’s personal ‘best of’ collection. What most likely remains unchanged is the pleasure that can be derived from such activities.

Musical example 1

Musical example 2