Tag: pasticcio operas

By Leo Duarte

The appendix to the Händel-Werk-Verzeichnis comprises a group of fifteen compositions which have been assigned the catalogue numbers HWV A1-A15; one of these (HWV A15) is a collection of keyboard minuets arranged from opera arias; two more (HWV A2 and A5) represent unfinished operas by Handel; the remaining twelve compositions are so-called pasticcio operas. Pasticcios, common in the eighteenth century, brought together selected arias from various different operas to create a new entertainment. In today’s urtext age it is easy to view the pasticcio process pejoratively. We tend to be more interested in hearing music in its original context rather than in a bastardised form, but when such a leading light as Handel is involved first-hand in the bastardisation we might take more notice. Three of the twelve pasticcios (HWV A11, A13 and A14) were put together mainly using arias from Handel’s own back-catalogue with newly composed recitatives to bind the arias into their new librettos. The remaining nine pasticcios, however, are rather different. They were performed as part of Handel’s London opera seasons, probably under his personal musical direction, although they contain hardly a note by Handel himself.

These nine operas on which we will focus can be divided into two groups – the first three, chronologically, being true pasticcios, the last six being more arrangements than real pasticcios. I say arrangements, but in effect they are heavily cut versions of full operas by Geminiano Giacomelli (Lucio Papirio Dittatore, HWV A6), Leonardo Leo (Catone, HWV A7), Adolf Hasse (Caio Fabricio, HWV A9), and three by Leonardo Vinci (Semiramide riconosciuta, HWV A8, Arbace, HWV A10, and Didone abbandonata, HWV A12). Each of these operas does include at least some musical pieces which did not originally belong to it, though the number varies from just two in Lucio Papirio Dittatore to seventeen in Semiramide riconosciuta. Handel likely attended a performance of the original production of Giacomelli’s Lucio Papirio Dittatore while he was on a headhunting mission to Italy for new singers in 1729. Evidently, he enjoyed the opera well enough to wish to stage it in London and deemed the music of a good enough quality that he hardly troubled to interfere with it except to transpose a few arias to suit his London cast and to curtail the recitatives and the number of arias in order to meet the tastes of the London audience. He did, however, allow the phenomenal bass soloist Antonio Montagnana to include two arias which he had presumably sung with great success in previous productions.

Lucio Papirio Dittatore was the only pasticcio Handel produced in London which had so little changed or added. For the rest, it seems likely that, as in the case of Montagnana, the inserted arias came from the repertories of the individual singers. Indeed, to Handel and other eighteenth-century opera producers, one of the attractions of the pasticcio form was that the cast already had the music under their belts and therefore required less time to learn and to prepare it. Handel would have been spared the labour of writing a brand new work, required rehearsal days would have been drastically reduced, and the public would still be receiving something novel and exotic – the newly emerging compositional styles from Italy. London had become accustomed to a diet of Handel’s beautifully wrought and carefully considered orchestral counterpoint; in his music, the orchestra has its own distinctive voice which reflects upon and dialogues with the voice of the singer. The new Italian fashion was often far more straightforward, with the singer bearing the full weight of the important musical material and the orchestra mainly confined to ritornellos and a much simpler accompaniment underneath the vocal line.

This new fashion was not to everyone’s taste. After witnessing a pasticcio rehearsal, Mary Pendarves – one of Handel’s most ardent admirers – exclaimed, “Operas are dying, to my great mortification”. Many of the pasticcios received as few as four performances before being taken off. This diminutive number was bested by Ariosti’s Teuzzone which received only three performances in 1727, but it is also worth noting that Handel’s own Ezio, which today is widely esteemed, received only five performances in 1732. Some of the pasticcios, however, were very warmly received by the public, particularly the first two to be produced: Elpidia, HWV A1 and Ormisda, HWV A3. Ormisda, which had so offended Pendarves in rehearsal, received a total of fourteen performances, outselling both of Handel’s new operas that season, Lotario and Partenope.

Together with Venceslao, HWV A4, Elpidia and Ormisda form the group of three true pasticcios. At the risk of mixing metaphors, I like to think of these as ‘pic ‘n’ mix’ pasticcios. ‘Pasticcio’, in Italian, literally means a ‘pie’ and has also come to mean a ‘jumble’ or a ‘mess’. These pic ‘n’ mix pasticcios are a real jumble of arias by multiple composers from different operas with at most four arias originally from an opera bearing the same title, and even these aria attributions are speculative since the music of the original operas from which they might have been sourced seems not to have survived and cannot, therefore, be conclusively traced. There is consequently more variety in these three early pasticcios than in the later group of six, though that is not to say that they lack stylistic cohesion. The vast majority of the selected arias had come from Italian operas premiered within the preceding two years or so, and had the overriding flavour of the new Italian style to bind them together. To the London audiences, they would have represented an imported entertainment of ‘greatest hits’ from the most recent foreign opera seasons. The novelty value of these pasticcios should not be underestimated and was doubtless part of their original appeal, though today their appeal, indeed the very notice of them, comes solely through their connection with Handel. But can Handel’s connection be found in any more concrete compositional aspects?

The recitatives in four of the group of the six pasticcio-arrangements are largely taken from the original operas on which they are based. Exceptions to this are to be found in the recitatives of Caio Fabricio and Semiramide riconosciuta where Handel himself seems to have taken responsibility for composing new recitatives. The three true pasticcios appear to have had entirely new recitatives composed, though by whom we do not know. Stylistically they do not betray the hand of Handel so, presumably, they were composed by one of the many musicians attached to Handel’s opera company. Indeed, in rather too many instances the recitatives seem to have been rather inexpertly handled, resulting in jarring harmonic progressions and awkward vocal phrasing. These defects can be easily rectified in rehearsal, just as they probably were when they were originally performed, and the defects do not detract from the overall impression of the works. That the recitative composition should be delegated is not all that surprising given that, in London at least, the audience would have understood little of the Italian dialogue and would have been far more interested in the arias.

Another area where we might be able to detect Handel’s influence is in certain arias with which he tinkered. In Elpidia, an aria originally from Vinci’s Iphigenia has had a two-bar phrase crossed out each time it appears (Ex. 1). It is no more than a small cadential coda to the vocal line but evidently it was deemed undesirable and was deleted. The result is a tightening of the musical form, and it is tempting here to see Handel exerting his musical influence over the material. This is not an isolated example; two more arias from Elpidia and others from the other pasticcios have received similar treatment. Handel is infamous for “borrowing” material from other composers, but whenever he does so he drastically alters it, often distilling the ideas into their most concentrated form. Perhaps here also he couldn’t resist amending the musical material to his liking.

(Ex. 1)

Two arias – one each in each Semiramide riconosciuta and Didone abbandonata – underwent even more wholesale reworking. Vinci’s aria Saper bramante in Semiramide had to be transposed down an octave to fit a change of cast. Initially Handel seems to have imagined changing very little of the substance of the aria, but as he went through he decided to alter the character drastically in places, going so far as to recompose the entire closing ritornello. In the case of the aria Se vuoi ch’io mora from Didone, Handel’s interference with Vinci’s original might have had a slightly more duplicitous motive because he had already borrowed some of the musical material for his own opera, Giustino in the same season, so altering the material in the pasticcio would have provided a smokescreen for his magpie-like tendencies.

Aside from the aforementioned musical amendments, I believe Handel’s influence can be detected, less conclusively but perhaps more tellingly, in the way the pasticcios are structured and in their dramatic pacing. For the group of six pasticcio-arrangements Handel’s hands were largely tied to the structure of the original operas. Of course he cut them heavily, and was also forced to make certain concessions on account of the relative standing and ability of his cast members, but the overall structure remained relatively unchanged. It is in the ordering of the three true pasticcios where Handel’s influence might be seen most clearly, and, particularly so I would argue, in Ormisda. Imagine the scene: Handel is presented with a libretto and a pile of his cast’s favourite dismembered arias which he has to mould into a fine new work. The result could have turned into a Frankenstein’s monster of an opera, but instead we glimpse the ghostly hand of Handel, the master of dramatic pacing, at work in the selection and sequence of the arias.

A detailed analysis of the music of Ormisda is beyond the scope of this article, but I will provide a quick tour of Act I since the variety in character and the emotional range of the drama is worthy of note. The overture and the closing chorus are by far the earliest compositions in the work, the style being decidedly antiquarian compared with the arias which form the bulk of Ormisda. The prima donna (Anna Maria Strada) is entrusted with the opening aria, a lilting 6/8 allegro in G major which is followed by a dark, threatening aria sung by the primo uomo (Antonio Bernacchi) in B minor. Next, the principal antagonist (Antonia Merighi) sings an unctuous lament in the unlikely key of B-flat major, replete with crocodile tears to deceive the title-role (Annibale Pio Fabri) who responds with a regal yet spirited aria in D major. The following aria for Strada has two alternatives, one from the original production and one which replaced it in later performances; both are soothing in character. The unwilling puppet of the antagonist (Francesca Bertolli) then sings a defiant aria full of tempo changes and with plenty of opportunities for short cadenzas before Fabri sings a fulminating piece in C minor with much challenging coloratura. Bernacchi is then given a wistful aria in the remote key of E major and Merighi is given the last word of the act in a triumphant allegro with wide vocal leaps and extravagant quadruple stops for the violins over a bassline which alone punctuates the material with brash, almost farcical octave figures.

The final act is noteworthy too for its profusion of bravura arias. The slowest tempo indication is for one of Strada’s arias, marked ‘moderato’, but the rest are high-octane display vehicles for each cast member, and Strada is also granted “The Last Song” (as it is labelled in the manuscript) which is indicated as a rapid ‘Allegro assai con spirito”. It is no wonder that this opera was such a success. In recent performances at the London and Halle Handel Festivals, the way the energy in the room crescendoed throughout the last act was palpable and truly remarkable. This effect can have been no accident on Handel’s part, which leads me to some final thoughts as to what might be important about Handel’s contributions to these poor, neglected pasticcios.

Do the HWV numbers given to these works afford them a sense of legitimacy which is perhaps undeserved? As we have seen, there is very little if anything of Handel the composer in them, and the very act of looking for Handel’s contributions to these pasticcios has recently been called into question. As a performer in an age which would much rather hear Handel than Giacomelli it is all-too-tempting to emphasise the Handelian connection, if for no other reason than to get bums on seats at performances, and it would not be entirely unfair to accuse promoters of trying to dupe the public into thinking that they’re going to hear some unknown Handel operas by publicising the events with a prominent HWV number. Even in Handel’s day, some commentators were apparently unaware that the music in the pasticcios wasn’t by Handel himself. Nevertheless, I hope I have demonstrated that these fine dramatic entertainments are worthy of renewal and of more than a passing interest. Even if Handel’s own compositional processes remained ultimately unaffected by the marked changes in style represented by his continental counterparts, he certainly felt that their music was worth presenting, and who are we to argue with the great man?