"Unity, Originality, and the London Pasticcio" in "Bits and Pieces: Music for Theatre"

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"Unity, originality, and the London Pasticcio" in "Bits and pieces: Music for theatre"

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Citation Price, Curtis, and Lowell Lindgren. 1992. Unity, originality, and the London Pasticcio in "Bits and pieces: Music for theatre". Harvard Library Bulletin 2 (4), Winter 1991: 17-30.

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Unity, Originality, and the London Pasticcio 1

Curtis Price

he pasticcio is a species of Baroque and Classical opera literally made up of T bits and pieces of other works. Ridiculed by some eighteenth-century critics, it also offends our modem notion of originality and structural unity. Musicologists have been loath to deal with any opera which-however popular and esteemed in its own day-does not exist in a single, authorized version. Apparently beyond the pale, a pasticcio was often written by committee, typically consisting of some singers aided by hack poets who added new words to existing music, and even by lowly house music copyists acting on vague instructions "to cook up something" for Si- gnor Senesino or Madam Mara. But the pasticcio was staple fare at every major eighteenth-century opera house; Handel, Vivaldi, Hasse, Gluck, Mozart, and Haydn all produced or contributed to pasticcios; and it was the prevailing form of Italian opera in London from 1705 until the early years of the nineteenth century. CURTIS PRIG 1s King Edward Yet its prevalence is not the only reason why the pasticcio merits study: by learn- Professor of Music and Head ing how such works were conceived, assembled, and judged, insight can be gained of Department at K111g's Col- into what we consider the more legitimate forms of eighteenth-century opera. I lege, Uni\'ernty of London. would argue that our reverence for a presiding genius and structural integrity, espe- His publications 111cludc Henry cially in the cut-and-paste world of the theater, is misplaced. P11rccll ,111d the London Sta.~e (1984) and an edition ofHmry The pasticcio arose towards the end of the seventeenth century from practical P11rccll:Did,, and Aeneas (1986). exigency. Because Italian operas were almost always designed for specific singers and adapted to local conditions, revivals with singers of different voice or character often required extensive changes. It was far easier for an impresario to allow per- fonners to substitute arias they had successfully sung elsewhere than to hire someone to adjust the original music or to commission an entirely new work. By r 700 almost all revivals were subjected to the process of wholesale substitution, and it was only a small step to the full-blown pasticcio, that is, an opera assembled mainly from existing arias fitted to an old or new libretto with fresh recitatives. The term "pasticcio" (which literally means "hodge-podge" or "pudding") was not applied to composite operas until much later. One of the first to use the word in connec- tion with music was Quantz; in his autobiography written in I 7 5 5, he recalled a visit to Florence in I 7 2 5, where he heard operas "patched together with arias of various masters, which is called 'pastry' by the Italians, 'un pasticcio'. " 2 The verb form might have been used even earlier: according to Goldoni's memoirs

1 The research for tlm paper was made possible partlv by a Paul Nettl, Forgorte,i :\l"sicia,is (New York: Philosophical grant ti-om the Notional Endowment for the Humanities Librarv. 1951), p 280. "The Life of Herr J.J.Quantz as sketched by himsdC'' m I 8 HARVARD LlilRARY BULLETIN

(published in 1787), Vivaldi in r735 had asked the poet to insert new aria texts into an existing libretto, that is, "to accommodate or cook up the drama to his [Vivaldi's] taste, in order to provide a better or worse placement for the anas sung on other occasions by his protege [Anna Giro]" ("accornodare o impasticciare il Dramma a suo gusto, per mettervi bene o male le Arie, che aveva altre volte cantate la sua Scholara "). 3 But the pasticcio as such was well understood long before this; the first extended discussion appeared in A Critical Discourseon Opera's and i\1usick i11E11L~la11d of 1709. Although its anonymous writer, like Goldoni, regarded the so-called "patch-work" or "medley" opera as degraded and degrading, he explains why London, as a re- mote outpost ofltalian art and culture, had to resort to such works. He also pro- vides a spoof recipe whose humor lies in its very accuracy for works produced in London, 1706-1709:

Pick out about an hundred ltalim1 Airs from several Authors, good, or bad, it signi- fies nothing. Among these, make use of fifty five, or fifty six. of such as please your Fancy best, and Marshall 'cm in the manner you think most convenient. When this is done, you must employ a Poet to write some E11glishWords, the Airs of which arc to be adapted to the Italian Musick. In the next place you must agree with some Composer to provide the Recitative, and promise to give him, in case the Opera is perfom1'd. as little as possible; by this means you'll nm no Risque, being at little or no Expence. When this is done, you must make a Bargain with some Mungril Italia11 Poet to Translate that Part of the Ett~lislt that is to be Perform' d in Italian; and then deliver It into the Hands of some Amanuensis, that understands Musick better than your self, to Transcribe the Score. and the Parts. 4

The author then goes on to make an important distinction between pasticcios with arias selected gratuitously and haphazardly by singers or by musically illiterate impresarios, and those works "prepar' d by a Person that is capable of uniting dif-

ferent Styles so artfully as to make 'em pass for one. "j Any need for someone "capable of uniting different Styles" was supplied just two years later with the arrival in London of Handel, the boldest and most skillful of all pasticheurs. At the King's Theatre, Haymarket, in the 1720s and 1730s, he exercised an impresario's right to bring out pasticcios (figure r). His usual proce- dure was to select arias from the latest Venetian or Neapolitan operas, set by composers such as Hasse, Vinci, and Orlandini; he fit them into an existing libretto-which one of his associates modified as required-while composing afresh only the secw recitative and an occasional symphony or duet. Naturally, the result is stylistically different from Handel's original compositions, but most of his pasticcios are not less dramatic or coherent than his own operas; and, as Reinhard Strohm has observed, the pasticcios allowed Handel to appeal to the London audience's growing taste for .~alantmusic far more freely than he could bring him-

self to do in his own operas. 1' Handel produced several different kinds of pasticcios, ranging from the true patch-work, in which an existing libretto was filled out almost entirely with arie di ba,Raglie(suitcase arias), to the medley opera, in which each act was set by a different

CJr!o Goldorn. T111rele opm'. c'd. Giuseppe Orr0Lm1, 4th nJtioml. 1968), p 70. cdn (Verona: Arnaldo Mond,1dori. 19_19). I. 721. l/Hd . p. 84. -l In Fran\--oi~ Raguenet, A Co111p1.1n·J-011hcruY'CII rhc Frc,ulr '' l:"ssays <111 Handel (wd Italian ()pcm (CJmbridge· Can1- and Italian ,Hi-birk 11t1dOpcr,1\-, Translatcdf,wn the Frt"11rl1 bridge Universitv Press. 198s), pp 1(14-211 (London, 1 709, rpt. Farnborough, H.mts: Gregg Inter- ( ·,111y,Origi11,1/ity, ,111d tl1c Lo11do11 Pas/1ccio I() ~r r

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II II II II Ii•

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f\~1m' 1 f>lrw 1111d scd1on cf the

K111g·.1 Thciitn·, H,1y111.irkct,J~\)111 Cl1bnd P,on' .\I1ir£111 [)11nw11r, 1-'.irallc:k ,k pL,m de, plm hdk1 1,1lk1 de 1pectacks d'lulie er de Fr.mce (/>cms 1;;41, 11/atc 21 20 HARVARD LlllRARY BULLETIN

composer. Orcste (1734) and Alcrn111droScuero (1738), comprising arias which he chose from his own works and fitted to heavily adapted librettos, are s11i.Rrneris. Since Handel was a prodigious borrower and arranger of his own and others' music, there is only a fine line of distinction between Oreste, a self-pastiche, and Ri11,1ldo ( I 7 r r), his first London opera. Rinaldo is far from an "on611nal creation," for it was constructed much like a pasticcio: several arias were taken with little change from his earlier works; some of them were given parodied texts; and a frw were borrowed from other composers. As in Oreste, the only part of R11,aldowhich is entirely new is the scffo recitative.~ By 1741, when Handel finally withdrew from Italian opera, the pasticcio was well established on the London stage. The tem1 itself was no longer pejorative. For example, in 1742 that keen consumer and severe critic of Italian opera Horace Walpole wrote: "our operas begin tomorrow with a pasticcio, full of most of my favourite songs."' Walpole and other English writers, including Charles Burney, judged pasticcios and original, single-author operas by the same criteria and, while often criticizing individual examples of both, did not disapprove of the pasticcio process itself It was fully recognized as a necessary feature of a commercialized theater which demanded that operas be adjusted during the course of a production in response to audience reaction. Yet many writers did notice an inherent problem with pasticcios: namely, a lack of variety in the choice of arias or, as one critic put it, "the want of proper light and shade in the disposition of the songs"; in some such works "the singers, regardless of the necessary imposition of the shades, the c!tiaroswro,have no other aim but to elevate and surprize."'J But one could not blame the performers: given free rein, they would naturally want to show off their best parts. After Handel left in 1734, the King's Theatre was not exactly rudderless, but a string of distinguished house cornposers-Porpora, Gluck, J. C. Bach, Sacchini, Anfossi, Cherubini, and Martin y Soler among them-expended as much time if not effort on pasticcios as on original operas. The question which has never been properly answered is this: did they object to assembling rather than composing works from scratch? After all, Handel may have been paid the same for a pasticcio as for a new opera, ' 0 though this is not the case with later composers, as we shall see. Some documents have recently come to light which show in candid detail what two house composers thought about such apparently topsy-turvy priorities. In summer 1763 the management of the King's Theatre fell to the violinist and composer Felice Giardini. The temporary absence ofjohann Christian Bach and the depar- ture of several key singers at the end of the I 762-176 3 season had left the company on the verge of collapse. With an air of desperation, Giardini commissioned Gabriele Leone, a close friend, to travel to Italy during the summer to recruit singers and composers for the ensuing season. The detailed instructions that he issued

I For J 11st ot-borrowinE,rs in Ri1w!d(1, see Winton I )ean ,rnd Pnty. Italian ()11cri1 in lat111di 1 11, 1 760-180,1 (Ann Ar- J Mernll Knapp. Handel's Opcr,u 17,,4-172~ (Uxtiml· bor: UMI ltnearch Press, 1980). pp 142 and 210. Cbrendon Press, 1987), pp. [651-653[ iu Ser ()rto Ench Deut~ch, Hiwdtf: A D.xw11ct1t,iry 13i,1gr11- s Letter co Mann. 1 November 1742. m Jfomcc Halp,,/e's p/1y (New York: WW. Norton. 19,1). p. 23_,. k-rter tiom Corrt>sptmde11(e11-'ith Hordcc ~\L.urn,ed. W. S_ Lewls.. War- Rolli to Sene.s1110, 25 January 1729: "H.rndel will have ren Hunting Smith. ,111d George L Lam, 2 (New Haven· 1000 pounds for the co111po,;;icion. whether ir will be.· by Yale Univers1tv Press. 1<)54).96. hirn.-.elf or by ,vhoinsoevc-r cbe he nuy choose_" 9 Reviews of 1774 and 1783, cited in Frederick C. ( :nity, Orig111<1lil)',and 1/1cLo11do11 AFtiffio 21

survive together with an extensive correspondence between manager and agent.'' Gi:udini ordered his agent to travel to Rome in order to engage the greatest Italian composer of the age, Niccolo Piccinni, who was to be offered £200 for travelling to England in spring 1764 in order to compose two operas as well as ''qualche arie di staccate oppure altro" ("some detached arias or whatever"). 12 When Leone arrived at Rome, he found that Piccinni was in Venice, so heap- proached instead the young Neapolitan Mattia Vento, \vhose most recent opera, L 's(;izia11a, had been perfonned at Milan, Turin, and Venice during the previous season. Distressed at having missed Piccinni, Giardini instructed his agent on 22 August 1763: "Do not fail to engage this pastry cook" ("non mancate d'impegnare questo Pasticcierc"),an expression by which he evidently meant no disrespect. But when a draft contract was presented to Vento, the composer was indignant: as a ''professor of music," he declined "to compose recitatives and put operas together" ("declinava come protessore di musica d'impiegarsi per comporre recitativi e di mettere opere im1eme"). 13 What is surprising here is Vento 's apparent reluctance to assemble pasticcios, which was an accepted part of any house composer's duties. When he arrived in London in November r763 to take up his post at the King's Theatre, he soon found himself assembling operas, as Handel and J. C. Bach had done before him. The pasticcio grew in stature and respectability during the second half of the eighteenth century, and not only in London. Two comic operas-Venice 1759 and U dine I 79 r-were actually called II Pasticcio, the latter being an adaptation of works by Lorenzo Da Ponte and Vicente Martin y Soler. 14 At the King's Theatre, the patchwork opera exactly reflected the split personality of Georgian taste: bits of Handel oratorios (suitably fitted with Italian verse), Gluck (both reformed and unreformed), and Gretry could co-exist with the latest fluff from Naples, allele- gantly presented in the dignified guise of operascria, which was always the preferred genre at the Haymarket. But the pasticcio was also occasionally the vehicle of experiment and innovation. One of the most extraordinary operas of the period was surely Gi1111ioBruto of 1782, a pasticcio prepared by Ferdinando Bertoni for his friend, the celebrated castrato Gasparo Pacchierotti. This was no mere monument to the singer's indulgence, but is a genuine tragedy: the Roman consul Brutus dis- covers that his son Titus (sung by Pacchierotti) is caught up in a Tarquinian con- spiracy against the state; in the final scene, Brutus sentences Titus to death for treason, singing "lo perdo un figlio, ma salva e Roma." Can anyone think of an- other eighteenth-century opera that ends in seccorecitative? This daring effect left one bemused critic completely cold: "There is a great want of a new finale ... the

1 r Tht' Leo11e-G1.1rd1n1d1<,,pute WJ'i the ..;ubJt'Cl oft\\'O pam- 111w,1c.di, 1973- ). ,;,_v ··11 P.1sncuo.·· The .i.11011yn1ou-; phlers md sevnal lawsuits filed Ill the Court ofChancerv ,1d.,pter nf the 17 .l'J opera for ,he r e,tro Giusnmarn de S The,;;e Jrc- d1scu..,~cd m detJd in The ImprcsantJ's Ten C(1,r1- Moi,;;t' t'xpb1ns 1n a preface: "M1 t" cJduto 1n n1ente di 1111111d11lt'11ls, Roy,ll f\1u'iicJl Assocut1011 MonogrJph, no nprodurrc '>Lil TeJtro le Ara: m1gliori. che neUJ r, (forthcoming. 1992). hy Judirh Milhous. Kohen D L1pprc-\c1aaz1one di p.1recch1 DrJ.n1n11 Buffi pill deUe altrt' Hu111e, .lnd n1y,;elf p1Jcquer0. c che giJ riscossero lJ con1unt:' approyaz1one. 12 [G,lhrtelt LL'Onc.~].RcptJ/f.\C ,1 w, ,lifr,em.1st1rw11r m:s-i,1.,0/0,r Per c"pork 111 u11.1 111,1111crJconve11e\·ole. <;,tJcc.:neesscndo (London [no publi,her], 17(,4). p. 2,j. d.1 quel rutto. ondc ogni una fonnavanc unJ pane

1 1 l'ubl,c Record Otlicc. London, C.:12/117/1/,, Leone·, mtq..,1L111te.lH) divi-;ato d"mrrodurle in un,1 co1n1c,1 Jzionc,

JI1'i\VCT of 3 Augu,;r 17

conclusion as it stands at present being excessively bald and uninteresting."'' But he missed the point: Bertoni was trying to make the music rdkct the extreme austerity of the drama. Cill11io Bruto was a noble f1ilure, being performed only three times. ,r, But one should not claim too much for the pasticcio. It \Vas often a repository of excess and tastelessness-witness the now notorious 1787 King's Tbeatre production of Giulio Cesare in E_{!itto.Although the music was advertised as being entirely by Handel and the libretto based on the original 17 24 version, the producer and director, Dr. Samuel Arnold (figure 2), announced that because Handel's opera offered "a great number of incongruities, both in the language and the conduct, several material alterations have been thought absolutely necessary, to give the piece a dramatic consistency, and to suit it to the refinement of a modern audience."', What Arnold did was essentially to create a new opera along Handelian lines: Cae- sar is still horrified at the sight of Pompey's head; Cleopatra is disgmsed as Lydia, as in the original libretto; and some of the famous Parnassus scene is preserved. But in reducing Handel's opera from three acts to two, the great moments were drained of action and color, and the whole drama was sentimentalized. Ptolomcy docs not die in the final scene, but is magnanimously forgiven his transgressions. Of the music Arnold retained intact only Handel's final duet and chorus, Caesar's great monologue ("Alma de! gran Pompco") and Cleopatra's third-act aria ("Da tempeste il legno infranto "), which was moved to Act II and sung instc:1d by

Ptolomey. ,i All the other arias and choruses were assembled from different Handel operas (Parrrnopc,R,1da111isto, Alessandro, Sosan11c,and so forth), works which Arnold was at the time preparing for his complete edition of Handel (which he never fin- ished). The most remarkable thing about this version of Cilllio Cesare was not Arnold's radical alteration ofa masterpiece, but rather that he dared to offer a sam- pling from Handel's Italian operas, which were completely unknown to an audience that regarded )'vfessia/1and other oratorios as national monuments."' But we may still shudder or scoff at this apparent violation of Handel. Arnold does seem to have been motivated by a certain arrogance: admiration of the parts, yet contempt for the whole. He aimed to replace the conventions of operascria with

1 s Cirt:"d in Petty. lralitm ()ptra in L1i11dti11, p. 184. :>Lonng fr1r srnn~"'- cut the ··B'. <;ectinn. ,1nd mJde other

ir, Tht· unpreceJenred tr:1~1c endmg nuy h,1Yc hccn rnn1- ..,,11:dkr,h.tJu'.->t1nent:--_ To 11H1.,'t1<;1f\tl11~ ,i.ln:c1Jy ,c1Htillt'IH.1l

gJred by Nnverre \; b.1lkt Alffstr.- tir, Thr Tn'11111pli1f Cti11- pteLT, he ,1ddcd exprn.;;ivc .1ppoggic1tur.P, m the oboe-;. In 1r1giJILiiJC, whil.-h w;I'., pcrfonnc-d 1nunedutdy .1fter the <;h,1rp contr.1-;r, An1olJ\ 17S9 Ld1tion of Ciu/i,1 Cesare 1~ operJ In the b:ilkt AJmetus. Km~ of Ar~os. must kill re11urk.1bly f.tithfol to the 172-i \'er,ion .111d thu.;; '>JY'> hm1,elf to JppcJo;;c the µ-odi;;,or ,;;;01nco11e rnu.:.t die in lw, nothing ,1bo11t !Jj..,171'7 ,lfLl.Ilgnncnt \tt:,Hl Hi,;; \\T1tl·Alc1.._·-;tc. nut nf co11_1ug.1ldevotion. i;;tJb,;, 1'J Arnold w,1-. not ,done 111,ceing the potent1Jl o( H.1nclcl'.;;, herc;elf. Jll .in of ...clf-\acnficc nor unlike th.1t d1,;;pl.iycd operJ,;;; J'i 4u.1rnc-., for p.1,ncc10,. A nn\·,;;;papt'r Ltc1n (13nt- m the opcLL The dcu_, ex 111i1r/111111,vhereby "he 1.., rl'- JSh L1br.1r,. Th Cuts -12. fol. [7]. undJred. but probJblv <;run.'d to l i Ct'rn,1y rhercfi,rl' '' corrt'ct" die erJged~· ot~ thl' from 17SS) report-; pb11" for ,111Engli,h oper:i c.1llcd "Tht> oper,1 J,;;; ,,·dl. Choi(e of Hercule.;;_" It ,v,1-; to he dirntL·d hy \X/tllum

1-:' 1-'ref.ice to the lihretto (Loudnn. 17,~7). Sh1dd ,rnd \YJ) ··111tc11ckd by the ,wrhor, to be '\LJ1tl·d ro '' 111Act l. scene 7 nf Arnold", libretto. C.,c,,ir·s "Atf.m111 the· t:,vnrite tunes m Admeto Jlld R,mldo. Or,er,is of dcl pcn,icr" 1,;;;.1J..,o attributed to Cwlio ( .'c,,ire.but th1-;,iri.1 l-·Lmdel, .n1d the ti.)nncr thoughr by hi111.;;,clfoncof hi-, ti.11- ii;;actu.:iJly frorn C)rttmc_The only fra,g111entotrhe p,::i.;;riccio C"-tcompo.;;itions. The .lllrhor, though ln the 1n1111ediJtt' \-vh1ch 1, known to ha\TC hccn puhli-;hed i, ,1 duet fl)r \me to ,Hl E,nldoni, ha, been obl1ged ro soliclt Jnd ,lc"ccpt Ruhinclli (CJcs,1r) mJ MJd,un M,1r.1 (C:lcop,m.1), public co11trihutio11." Tht' J.uthor of rh1..,p:i~ti(uo, ,vh1ch

"T".m10 ,; sar.ll tu 4uelt.1·· (printed by HirchJII md \VJ', never produced. nuy h:in~ been Richard Edgnnnbe

Andrews; sec I.USM. A/1/ .j, H I U,), t.1kcn from the sec- (who hl·c11nc Ec1rl Mount Edgcurnhc in 1795), ,1 gre.H ond Jct ofRic.-,mlo I. ~howm~ less respect for HmJel thm mu..,ic lover Jnd critic who co1npo.;;cd the [L1li.1n op1._TJ he chd when prep,mn~ worb for hIS rnlllpk-te edition. Zn1ohw tOr the Ki11g·s The,1trl' 111 r Koo. Arnold .i.ddcd nvo ohoc'i and t\\·o hon1.., to the ongnul Lh1ity, Originality, and the London Pasticcio 23

.... ( I

Fi1,;;urc2. Samuel Arnold (1740-1802 J, dra11•nby Gco~{!l'Drwff, 25 _January 1;95, ,111d p11/,/ished hy ll'illram Da11icll, 1J11ly 1812. /{,1mird n,carrc Colla1i,1n

I:,

something more palatable. He created longer scenes with more ensembles. Obvi- ously concerned to choose pieces of the highest quality-to produce a show consisting entirely of hits, as it were-he also imposed long-tem1 tonal planning by grouping arias in the same key (something rarely found in Handel) .20 But to his credit, in only one instance did Arnold succumb to the temptation to cut the "B" section and suppress the d,1capo. 2 ' Despite re-orchestration, he seems to have been

00 Assunun~. of course. chat the borrowed pieces were not Ill its original key. E n»Jor. transposed. The only published number. the duet " That is. the "]:l" sections of all the other arias and duets "T'amo si sara1 tu 4uelli' mentioned above. was pnnted are included ,n the 17H7 libretto. HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN remarkably faithful to Handel's music and showed far more respect for his sources than did most other pasticcieri,including Handel himself. There was surprisingly little public reaction to Arnold's production of Giulio Cesare, apart from its relative success at the box office. 22 The humorless reactionary Mount Edgcumbe admired Rubinelli's rendition of "Alma del gran Pompeo," though he thought the "inferior parts" were "miserably executed, and the [overall] effect was absolutely ludicrous. " 23 Some recently discovered testimony from those directly involved reveals the planning behind the production and, quite unexpect- edly, addresses the pasticcio question head-on. At this time the Haymarket opera house was bankrupt and in receivership: by order of the Court of Chancery, the manager had to submit his books for annual inspection and could be questioned about any apparent irregularities. On 27 May 1789 the Court asked the then manager, Giovanni Andrea Gallini, specifically about Giulio Cesare, because something had caught an accountant's eye. Why, the Court wondered, had Dr. Arnold been paid as much as £ro5 for a pasticcio whose music was merely "compiled or selected from the works of some other ... master," when the usual fee for such ser- vices was only "ten Guineas or [at] the most £20"? 24 (In the 1780s a King's Theatre house composer could expect a salary of between £300 and £400 per annum.) Gallini, one of the few late eighteenth-century London impresarios who actually cared about artistic standards and who was instrumental in bringing Haydn to Lon- don two years later, responded vigorously on 21 July 1789. He admitted that £105 was a premium and considerably more than the usual amount paid for a pasticcio, but he added that "the price is generally proportional to the abilities of the com- piler or composer or the greatness of the work and the work in question was of great merit and much applauded and amply repaid the expence of compiling it." Unfortunately, Gallini undem1ined his defense of the alleged extravagance by add- ing that Arnold refused to write out the full score and pans and even "took away the spartito from the music copyist and refused to return the same until he was promised his full demand of £105." 21 Though Arnold seems to have held Gallini to ransom, we may nevertheless be surprised, even slightly disturbed, to find the word "great" applied to this seeming travesty of one of Handel's finest operas, but that is because we automatically in- cline to measure Arnold's pasticcio against the nineteenth-century operatic ideal: a "great" opera is one whose music is original and coherent, one whose characters develop from within or through conflict with others and move us in extraordinary ways; to be perceived as great by more than one generation, an opera must have a fixed text capable of replication in different theaters. The text of a pasticcio, by contrast, is not fixed; its parts are interchangeable; characters need not be devel- oped; coherence of plot is an occasional bonus; even authorship itself is of second- ary importance. We must try to understand Gallini's claim of greatness in the light of late eighteenth-century operatic practice. We must admit that those supposed flaws so readily perceived in the pasticcio and roundly condemned by modem opera historians are also found in many newly-composed, single-author Italian

11 See Petty, [1alia11 Opera i11Lo11dm1. p. 249. in the case Hams and Callrn1 vs. Crawford, Grant, Tay- .,__l AJusfral Rcminisffnces ,.-flJn C)ld .4nMle11r (London: W. lor et al.. 12th interrogatory . C!Jrke, 1H24). pp. 6 1-62. '.I P.R.O., C107ho1. 2r July 17H9: '"The Answer and '• PRO. C107/201, 27 May 1789: "lnterrog.uories for Exa111inat1011of the PlarmiffJohn Andrew Gallini," in the the Exarrnmtron ofthc Pljainjtjiff]John Andw. Gillini." case Hams md Callini vs. Crav.tord, Grant. Taylor et al. operas, both serious ;md comic. The nonon oflarge-scale dramatic umty in opera was unknown for much of the eighteenth century. However \vell established and conducive to the production style of Italian opera in London, the pasticcio was on a collision course with the growing recog- nition in Great Britain of originality in music, or rather the protection of music as intellectual property, manifest in the emerging concept of music copyright. The second part of this paper considers this conflict, which struck at the heart of the pasticcio system. Composers did not gain the copyright to their O\Vn music in Great Britain until 1777, a result of the ruling 111 the famous case of J. C. Bach vs. Longman and

Lukey. 2 (' Before this, a publisher could print and sell any score \Vhich came into his hands from whatever source. But \Vhether or not the court ruling which established music copyright also applied to operatic works, especially to the pasticcio, \vas hotly disputed in the I 780s. The picture was clouded by the fact that in Lon- don certain star singers had the absolute right, guaranteed by contract, to substitute arias in any production ,vithout consulting the composer, librettist, director, or manager, subject to only one condition: that all such arias became the property of the opera company-in practice, the house music copyist who controlled the rights to all music pertonned in the theater. This perquisite, which gave the copyist power far beyond his immediate duties and which stifled original opera composition in London for decades, lies at the center of two important Chancery lawsuits. The cases are too complicated to discuss in detail here, but some recently discovered depositions by witnesses give a unique insight into the workings of the music department of the King's Theatre. 27 The first case is Storace vs. Longman and Broderip."~ In 1787, the same season in which Arnold produced Giulio Cesare, Stephen Storace, the talented English-Ital- ian composer, was employed by Gallini to help arrange pasticcios. 29 One of these \Vas based on Paisiello's opera JI re Teodoro i11 l/ene~ia, a score of which Storac<:' had acquired in Vienna at Gallini's request. Mmt of the necessary alterations v,;ere prob- ably carried out by Joseph Mazzinghi, the official house composer for the 1787- 1788 season. 30 Storace's only contribution was the substitute aria in Act II, scene 12, called "Care donne che bramate," \vhich was sung by his sister Anna Storace, who portrayed Lisetta (figure 3). She objected to some ofPaisiello's origmal music, which she found "dull and heavy," though 1t was alleged she lacked the stamina to bring off one part1cularly long and difi:icult aria. This is hard to believe. A cekbrated prima b1lf;1,friend of Mozart and his first Susanna in The .Harria,',;et:f F~',?aro,La Starace had apparently negotiated a contract which gave her the right to 111scrt

zt, Sec Jcrhn Snull. "'J-C. B,1l'h µ:oe'I to LJ,v." ·111c Jf11s1cd! po'ied twn p.1,;ricuo~ for \\·h1ch he JCtl1Jlly J.nd hn1u tide F1'11c·.1, I 26 ( 19S5L 526-,\2(). J11d D,1\·1d Hunrcr, ··rv1u..,i( n ..-ct·n·cd J.11d WJ.'> p.11J :!5 gumcJ'i tJ1._·h ,rnd he hrought Copynghr m Britcun to 1 ~oo."· .\tu.11t' f- 1-'--'Has, (17 ( HJ,W1). ovtT \Pille !'v1usil- fr01n Gern1.1n,- fur which hl· w,1,. ~(19-2,"i.2 J-1Jld [t'll J:;Ullll"J',."

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.-l111cn·um .\/11_1·1L-oft'.l!k•1fSo,-u-ry. 42 ( 19~9). 90-95. \\·h1ch hy :'\1'L1zz111.~.!;l11dated I.\ June 17X9: '·hl' i, n.:t.l!lll'd ,11h.lc111- \\'d\ \\Tlttcn before the d.1,covcry of tht' dep{)\HH)n, d1..,- ployt.·d ,1,;; cotnpo..;er to thL· Kin~\ Thc.1trc 1ll the cu-;-;eJ bdo\v. H,1y111,irkL·t Jnd J\ .;;uch 1t 1<.lh1-.J dury c111den1ploy111cnt c.,..,P.R_() .. Cr2/(i1:-;/12. 25JJnuJr:," t7SS: C:12/170J/1 r. 12 to nuke ~uch Jdd1t1011~ .tnd .1ltcr.H1on, m ye ()per.1,.

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"! P.R.O. C: 107/201. 21 July 17,,J Answer to lnterropto- And Ilic] made ,cwrdl Addi11ot1' w y,· ,d 01>erJ of ll re ne~ 111the CJ.)c.· H,1ms ,1nd C,1Ui111\')_ CrJ,vford. Crr11H. Teodnr,1 f'-ic].'' Tavlor ct JJ., 11th mtcrro~Mor-y· ··s11:-,ri1orScorJce com- 26 HARVARD LIURARY BULLETIN

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arias. 11 "Care donne" proved the hit of the show, and Stephen printed it himself In the meantime, the publishers Longman and Broderip had purchased the complete score from the Haymarket music copyist and brought out a rival edition. Starace asked for an injunction to stop sales and an award of damages; thus began a bitter court battle with suits and counter-suits. In his testimony the house music copyist Leopoldo De Michele claimed the right to the aria by long-standing custom and practice, and added this intriguing remark: "Signora Starace gave ye Manuscript Copy of the said Song to [me] ... to be written into ye Music of ye House as fanning a part of ye said Opera of Il Re Teodora [sic]. " 12 Quite apart from the question of ownership, the copyist evidently believed that an aria introduced into a pasticcio became an integral part of the

J' As she reportedly did for the 17S9- 17yo season: "Storace's of her Jirs· (11,c T11ncs,13 FebruJry 1790) engagement at the Opera does infinite credit to the lib- .12 i'.R.O .. C24/ 1936: lnterro~atoncs for the Plamtiffs in the erality of the Manager. Shl" is to receive two hundred case Lonpn:m and l:lrodenp vs. Stor.Ke. deposition by De gumeas for ten 111ghts-with full l1berty as to the selection Michele dated r 3 June I 789. Unity, Or(f;i11ality,and the London Pastimo 27 whole opera. The Lord High Chancellor did not comment on this point, but ruled in favor of Storacc. 11 The right of a composer to his or her own music, even in an opera house that specialized in producing pasticcios, was clearly affinned. Starace vs. Longman and Broderip is a landmark case in the history of British music copyright, but the judgement left several important questions unanswered. Who owned the rights to a pasticcio consisting entirely of borrowed music? Who owned the rights to old arias introduced into newly composed works at the singer's insistence? Did Lord Kenyon's ruling supercede the singer's right to make substi- tutions? The confusion is illustrated by the King's Theatre production of the serious opera L'11s11rpatorinnoce11tc during the 1789-1790 season. Based on Metastasio's Dc111(:foo11te,it was an original work by the resident composer and harpsichordist Vincenzo Federici. But the prima donna Gertrude Elisabeth Mara introduced arias of her own choosing into Federici's score (figure 4). With Starace vs. Longman fresh in mind, an anonymous writer protested to The Times of 8 April 1790: "[Federici] announces the music of the Opera on Saturday, to be a genuine composition of his own: and therefore we may fairly ask him, why the two sweetest airs in the whole ... happen to be not only in the music, but in the very words taken from an Opera composed by the celebrated Signor Andreozzi? ... the airs no doubt are divine, and they were well executed; but, Signor [Federici], you should not rob Andreozzi of his laurels." The writer has got the wrong end of the stick. Federici was not necessarily trying to deceive the public but was only bowing to the prima donna's superior right guaranteed by her contract with Gallini. This confused state of affairs was somnvhat clarified by a second, even more complicated lawsuit, which reveals the messier side of pasciccio production. 34 In April 1791 Madam Mara introduced the aria "Anche nel petto io sento" into her benefit perfonnance of Sarti's Idalide at the King's Theatre in the Pantheon (figure 5). Anticipating the popularity of the catchy tune, she asked the music librarian to bring the orchestra parts to her dressing room inunediately after the perfom1ancc, even before the opera was over. She then quickly sold the aria to Longman and Broderip. In the meantime, De Michele acquired an illicit copy which he sold to the rival finn of Skillern and Goulding; hence the lawsuit. The Court obviously had first to establish the identity of the composer, then decide whether the piece was an arrangement and, if so, who had made It and to what extent it differed from the original. A long list of probing interrogatories was drawn up, and all interested parties, plus some expert witnesses, were called to tes- tify .1 ' Madam Mara at first claimed to be the co-author. But several witnesses, including the disinterested composer John Wall Callcott, unhesitatingly identified the aria as an arrangement of Paisiello's duet "Nel cor piu non mi sento" from the opera LJJAfoli11arella. The original duet had been perfom1ed in London the year before and was even published by the plaintifE Skillern and Goulding with the correct

l< Thc_judgcment i1 found in P.R.O. C33/472. Part 2, fok H P.R.0 .. C12/185/34, 21 Mav 1792: Skillern md (107-608. 15 Julv 1789. The Lord Cluncellor J15nmscd Goulding v1. Longnu.n and l:lroderip. Lons'l1w1 .md Drodenp·s counter-suit, ordered rhc pub- 11 P.R.O., C24/t964: three 1et1 of 1merrogatoncs m the 1i,hcr1 to pay all legal com, .nd awarded Starace one sh ri- case Skillern and Goulding vs. Longman and llrodenp. ling in Lhma~es: this token su111ind1cJte~ tlut rhe judge one each on behalf of the plamnffs ,nd deticndams, and considered the CJ1e ro turn on a tine legal point rather cro,;;<;-exan1i1ution of certain key witnesses, dJtcd 26 thJn J.ny gro-;-; nnsconduct on the dc-fenillnt,;;' pJrt. NoYember 1792. 6 December 1792, and 9 January I 793, respectively. HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN

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attribution. Confronted with this unambiguous evidence u11dcr cross-examination, Madam Mara back-pedaled fast. She recalled inviting several members of the King's Theatre orchestra to her home to nm through the piece; she had sketched out a distinctive accompaniment for two flutes, two French horns, bassoon, and harp. Dissatisfied with the instrumentation, she asked the house composer, Mazzinghi, to take her rough score away for adjustments. So how did she explain the conflict- ing testimony of her husband, John Baptist Mara, who said that Mazzinghi had suggested the changes? Madam Mara supposed that her husband had been out of the room at the crucial mome11t; at least this part of her testimony is credible: Mr. Mara was a notorious drunkard who might well have had to excuse himself from time to time. The serious crux of this tawdry little squabble was whether the be- guiling accompaniment was the work of Mazzinghi, who supported the plaintiff~' rights to the song, or Madam Mara, who had originally claimed to be co-author. L ·,Illy, On,~111<1/1ty,,111d r/1e L111do11P.1sticoo 29

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The Master of the Rolls ruled in favor of the defendants Longm:m and Brodenp and thereby tacitly accepted Madam Mara's testimonyY' The law is an ass, you will say. The Court was in effect upholding the right of a performer to introduce arias and then sell them, even when authorship was uncertain or, as in this case, pla1::,ria- rism had been admitted. But there was a larger consequence: this lawsuit, however untidy, finally broke the stranglehold which the King's Theatre had on its composers: a great hindrance to the development of opera in late eighteenth-century England had finally been removed, and in the mid- I 790s Da Ponte and Martin y Soler were among the first to benefit from the rcfom1. This case is also interesting because it raised but failed to tackle the moral question which lies at the heart of the pasticcio process. Is it right to take other people's arias, make cosmetic alterations, insert them into an alien dramatic context, then pass the whole thing off as one's own, often for considerable profit? In transform- ing Paisiello's duet into a solo aria with new words and getting Mazzinghi to real- ize her idea for an accompaniment, Madam Mara was, by her own clumsy admission, trying to deceive; she had stolen Paisiello's intellectual property and was covering her tracks. But before condemning her, one should recall that even so great a figure as Handel was capable of similar deception, most notably in his pasticcio arrangement of Vinci's Didone abhandonata. As John Roberts has recently shown, Handel altered certain pieces in such a way as to conceal the fact that he had already borrowed from them for his "own" opera Ciustino. 37 Thus was the world of the pasticcio. Without skirting the moral issue, one should nevertheless distinguish between such deceptions, however minor, and the pasticcio protocol which evolved in the late eighteenth century. Many pasricheurs, like Samuel Arnold in Giulio Cesare and Stephen Starace in his English operas (though not in his Italian ones), usually labelled their borrowings in published vo- cal scores, or the librettos clearly stated, for example, ''the music by several emi- nent composers, under the direction of Signor Bertoni." Singers who produced pasticcios for their benefit nights were admittedly much less scrnpulous. But we should not sweep these curious operas under the carpet because their conception was less than immaculate or because they do not conform to later organicist theo- ries of art. We should be prepared to admit that bits and pieces of diverse works could, on occasion, be placed in a dramatically convincing order that might ulti- mately overcome the absurd conventions of opera seria itself