No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Rossini's Self-Borrowings as a Stylistic Weapon
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2023
Abstract
Between 1812 and 1816 Rossini took Italian stages by storm and performances cycles of his operas soared in an unprecedented way. The present essay investigates the fundamental role played by self-borrowing in this achievement. As it will be preliminarily clarified, at least for Rossini, self-borrowing does not represent a sub-category of borrowing (i.e. from others: he seldom resorted to other composers’ works), but a peculiar characteristic of his compositional habit, a weapon used to spread his signifiers throughout different stages and genres.
This article focuses on a case study: La gazzetta, an opera deeply rooted in the tradition of the opera comica in Neapolitan, whose authoriality normally resided more in performers (in this case, in the well-known actor/singer Carlo Casaccia) than in poets or composers. Special attention will be given to the use of self-borrowings in some key pieces of the opera, including the recently rediscovered Act I quintet. The essay aims to demonstrate that self-borrowings, far from being a mere time-saving device, helped Rossini to overpower Casaccia's distinctive way of expression, depriving him of his authoriality and of his own voice. With La gazzetta, Rossini conquered the last outpost; after 1816, the mastery of Italian stages (and genres) belonged only to him.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
Footnotes
I wish to express my gratitude to Candida Mantica, Misha Enayat, Brent Waterhouse and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.
References
1 ‘Die Ouvertüre (E moll) hat Schönes, und gefiel; sie hat aber nicht die geringste Modulation, die man doch von einem Rossini mit Recht erwartete. Wenn man beym Schlusse des ersten Theils sogleich den Anfang wieder zu hören bekommt; oder mit andern Worten: wenn das Allegro einer Ouvertüre aus dem Thema und Mittelgedanken, in die Oberquint des Tonstückes schliessend, besteht, und unmittelbar wieder mit dem Thema anfängt, und ohne alle Modulation den Mittelgedanken wieder ergreift, und mit einem Crescendo – Fortissimo (welche letzte Weise schon zu alltäglich klingt) schliesst, wie dies hier der Fall ist; wenn sich noch dazu die Instrumente wenig bewegen, und grössentheils arpeggiren: so kann ein solches Stück zwar Schönes haben, es kann aber weder gross, noch tief genannt werden, und hat man es ein paar Male gehört, so hat man auch genug’; Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 13 April 1814, coll. 256–7. All translations are by the author.
2 On Lichtenthal, see Cesari, Claudia, ‘Peter Lichtenthal e la vita musicale milanese nella prima metà dell'Ottocento’, in La musica a Milano, in Lombardia e oltre. Volume secondo, ed. Martinotti, Sergio (Milano: Vita e pensiero, 2000): 233–49Google Scholar.
3 See Rossini, Gioachino, Aureliano in Palmira, ed. by Carnini, Daniele and Crutchfield, Will, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2019): xxiii–xxxiiiGoogle Scholar.
4 Probably many more. This number is the sum of the first ten results for the search key ‘Barbiere di Siviglia overture’, ordered by number of views; hence, the research does not include Italian or other languages nor other keywords (last updated 20 April 2022).
5 The bar numbers and this brief description follow Rossini, Aureliano, 1–47; see also Lorenzo Bianconi, ‘“Confusi e stupidi”: di uno stupefacente (e banalissimo) dispositivo metrico’, in Gioachino Rossini 1792–1992: Il testo e la scena, ed. Paolo Fabbri (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 1994): 129–61; Emanuele, Marco, L'ultima stagione italiana. Le forme dell'opera seria di Rossini da Napoli a Venezia (Turin: De Sono-Passigli, 1997)Google Scholar.
6 Senici, Emanuele, Music in the Present Tense: Rossini's Italian Operas in Their Time (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the chapters (‘Repetition’, ‘Borrowing’, ‘Style’) are respectively at pp. 31–53, 55–69, 71–81. On the ambiguity of the dual-purpose term ‘repetition’ (within the same piece and between Rossini's different compositions) see Emanuele Senici, ‘Rossinian Repetitions’, in The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini, ed. Nicholas Mathew and Benjamin Walton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013): 236–62. According to Senici, ‘far more frequent, however, are remarks about themes, melodies, movements, or even entire numbers of an opera presumably heard in previous works’ (that is to say, self-borrowing or what Beghelli calls ‘tinta’, see n. 8), though Senici admits ‘occasional remarks about repetition at the level of single movements do appear’, quoting a Milanese review of La Cenerentola (Ibid., 248). At the time of writing the first version of the present essay, Senici's volume (which clarifies and summarizes many of his previous essays about Rossini and the primo Ottocento) was not yet published; for this reason, in the following pages I quote more extensively from his less recent articles.
7 In his well-known letter to Tito Ricordi, writing about his opera omnia published by Ricordi in piano-vocal score, Rossini said, ‘readers will find in different operas the same musical pieces: but time and money were given to me in such a homeopathic way, that I had barely the leisure to read the (so-called) poetry to be put in music’ (‘si troveranno in diverse opere gli stessi pezzi di musica: il tempo e il denaro che mi si accordava per comporre era sì omeopatico, che appena avevo io il tempo di leggere la così detta poesia da musicare’); Lettere di G. Rossini raccolte per cura di G. Mazzatinti – F. e G. Manis (Florence: Barbera, 1902), 284.
8 A brief summary of the literature should include Marino, Marina, ‘Rossini e Pavesi: a proposito di un'aria dell’Eduardo e Cristina’, Bollettino del Centro rossiniano di studi 26 (1986): 5–14Google Scholar; Marco Mauceri, ‘“Voce, che tenera”: una cabaletta per tutte le stagioni’, in Gioachino Rossini 1792–1992, 333–63; Arrigo Quattrocchi, ‘La logica degli autoimprestiti: Eduardo e Cristina’, in Gioachino Rossini 1792–1992, 365–82; Gossett, Philip, ‘Compositional Methods’, in The Cambridge Companion to Rossini, ed. Senici, Emanuele (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 68–84Google Scholar; Marco Beghelli, ‘Die (scheinbare) Unlogik des Eigenplagiats’, in Rossinis “Eduardo e Cristina”: Beiträge zur Jahrhundert-Erstaufführung, ed. Reto Müller and Bernd-Rüdiger Kern (Leipzig: Leipzig Universitätsverlag, 1997): 101–22 and Id., ‘Dall’ “autoimprestito” alla “tinta”: elogio di un péché de jeunesse’, in Gioachino Rossini 1868–2018: la musica e il mondo, ed. Ilaria Narici, Emilio Sala, Emanuele Senici and Benjamin Walton (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2018): 49–91; Senici, Emanuele, ‘“Ferrea e tenace memoria”. La pratica rossiniana dell'autoimprestito nel discorso dei contemporanei’, Philomusica on-line 9/1 (2010): 69–99Google Scholar.
9 J. Peter Burkholder, ‘Borrowing’ in Grove Music Online, Oxford Music Online, www.oxfordmusic.com, last accessed 4 April 2022. See also Id., ‘The Uses of Existing Music: Musical Borrowing as a Field’, Notes 50 (1993–1994): 871–4.
10 Gioachino Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ed. by Alberto Zedda, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro-Milano: Fondazione Rossini-Ricordi, 2009): xlii (and Ibid., Critical commentary ad locum).
11 Burkholder, ‘Borrowing’.
12 Monelle, Raymond, The Sense of Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000): 3Google Scholar.
13 Saussure, Ferdinand de, Corso di linguistica generale. Introduzione, traduzione e commento di Tullio De Mauro (Rome: Laterza, 1993): 83–8Google Scholar, 138–48; for the original French see Cours de linguistique générale (Paris: Payot, 1922): 97–103, 158–69; and for an English annotated translation, see Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics … Translated and Annotated by Roy Harris (London: Duckworth, 1983): 65–70, 112–20.
14 It is however essential to mention the following: Nattiez, Jean-Jacques, Fondements d'une sémiologie de la musique (Paris: Union générale, 1975)Google Scholar; Agawu, Kofi, Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Monelle, Raymond, Linguistics and Semiotics in Music (Chur: Harwood, 1992)Google Scholar; Tarasti, Eero, A Theory of Musical Semiotics (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), 1994Google Scholar.
15 Beghelli has pointed out ‘“sonic gestures”’, ‘abstract sonic “figurae” recurring through different operas and deprived of any real melodic identity as well as of any semantic non-musical value’, ‘musical combinable elements’, ‘a dictionary of sonic terms’ (‘gesti sonori’, ‘“figure” sonore astratte ricorrenti di opera in opera e prive sia di una reale identità melodica, sia di un valore semantico extramusicale’, ‘elementi musicali “componibili”’, ‘un vero e proprio vocabolario di “lemmi sonori”’. Beghelli, ‘Dall'autoimprestito alla tinta’, 84, 90). My ‘musical objects’ are not so distant from the ‘musical material’ in the following extract from Robert Fink's ‘“Arrows of Desire”. Long-range Linear Structure and the Transformation of Musical Energy’ (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1999): ‘Rossini never revised an opera, as such: he revised musical material’, italics in the original; Ibid., 77.
16 Senici, Emanuele, ‘Delirious Hopes: Napoleonic Milan and the Rise of Modern Italian Operatic Criticism’, Cambridge Opera Journal 2/27 (2015): 97–127Google Scholar, here 107–8.
17 ‘Ich bin dir sehr verbunden, sagte er zu A., dass du zur Verbreitung meiner Sachen alles Mögliche beträgst; aber zum wenigsten hättest du mir meine Kompositionen nicht verstümmeln sollen, sondern sie so hören lassen, wie ich selbst geschrieben habe. Mit der grössten Gleichgültigkeit antwortete A.: Lass mich nur machen; das weiss ich, als geborner Neapolitaner, besser; (F. ist Venetianer,) sie wollen hier nichts Langes hören, darum habe ich mich kurz gehalten; du siehst es ja selbst wie sehr die – wie du dich ausdrückst, verstümmelten Sachen gefallen; darin bin ich ein alter Praktikus’; Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 25 May 1808, col. 554.
18 ‘Ich habe andere Sachen im Kopfe!’. Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 25 May 1808, col. 553.
19 Marco Beghelli, ‘Dall’“aria del sorbetto” all’ “aria della pissa”’, in Musica di ieri, esperienza di oggi: Ventidue studi per Paolo Fabbri (Lucca: Lim, 2018): 141–68.
20 Carnini, Daniele, ‘“Diventando savio”: La vertigine delle convenienze teatrali e Ciro in Babilonia’, Bollettino del Centro rossiniano di studi 48 (2008): 85–113Google Scholar.
21 Paolo Fabbri defines Eduardo as a ‘pasticcio’ in his MGG entry (‘Pasticcio nach Adelaide di Borgogna, Ricciardo e Zoraide und Ermione sowie von Odoardo e Cristina von Pavesi’: ‘Rossini, Gioachino’, MGG Online, 2016, last accessed 20 August 2021).
22 A performance of Eduardo, the last opera by Rossini to be presented at the Rossini Opera Festival – not counting Ivanhoé or Robert Bruce – has been scheduled for Summer 2023. On this topic see Beghelli, ‘Dall’“autoimprestito” alla “tinta”’, 49–52.
23 The anecdotes, with some variants, are reported in a footnote to a letter from Barbaja (5 November 1816) in Gioachino Rossini: Lettere e documenti, ed. Bruno Cagli and Sergio Ragni (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini): vol 1, 184.
24 See Gioachino Rossini, La Cenerentola, ed. by Alberto Zedda, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 1998).
25 Reto Müller, ‘Lo Stabat Mater del 1832: Rossini (e Tadolini) alla crociata del “Mufti”’, in Stabat Mater: Donizetti dirige Rossini (Bergamo: Fondazione Donizetti, 2015): 11–49.
26 Gioachino Rossini, Petite messe solennelle, ed. by Davide Daolmi, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2013): Testi introduttivi, 31–43.
27 Gioachino Rossini, Demetrio e Polibio, ed. by Daniele Carnini, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2020): xxiii–xxix.
28 My statement is based on the libretti in Italian-language theatres now available through current databases: in primis corago.unibo.it, www.internetculturale.it (last accessed 20 April 2022). The data are approximate and are influenced by whether or not a libretto for the performance cycle survived. A great success like Demetrio e Polibio at the Milan's Teatro Carcano in 1813, for example, would not be documentable. However, the basis seems solid enough at least to show the trend in Italian-language opera houses in Italy and abroad.
29 See Paologiovanni Maione, ‘Le lingue della commedeja: “Na vezzarria; che non s’è bista à nesciuno autro state”’, in L'idea di nazione nel Settecento, ed. Beatrice Alfonzetti and Marina Formica (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2013): 179–95; Francesca Seller, ‘La nuova organizzazione dell'opera buffa al Teatro de’ Fiorentini di Napoli (1813)’, in Commedia e musica al tramonto dell'ancien régime: Cimarosa, Paisiello e i maestri europei. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi Avellino, 24–26 novembre 2016, ed. Antonio Caroccia (Avellino: Conservatorio Cimarosa, 2017): 455–76; Lucio Tufano, ‘La stagione operistica 1781–1782 al Teatro dei Fiorentini di Napoli: meccanismi gestionali e occasioni creative’, in Commedia e musica, 431–54; Signorelli, Pietro Napoli, Storia critica de’ teatri antichi e moderni divisa in dieci tomi. Tomo X parte II (Naples: Orsino, 1813)Google Scholar; Parenti, Pamela, L'opera buffa a Napoli: Le commedie musicali di Giuseppe Palomba e i teatri napoletani (1765–1825) (Rome: Artemide, 2009)Google Scholar; Francesco Florimo, La scuola musicale di Napoli e i suoi conservatorii con uno sguardo sulla storia della musica in Italia (Naples: Morano, 1881): vol. 4, 98–103; Martorana, Pietro, Notizie biografiche e bibliografiche degli scrittori del dialetto napolitano (Naples, 1874), 138–9Google Scholar.
30 There is a vivid debate (albeit inessential to our purpose) regarding whether spoken dialogues are to be considered an innovation due to the French rule or not. See Arnold Jacobshagen, ‘The Origins of the “recitativi in prosa” in Neapolitan Opera’, Acta Musicologica 2/74 (2002): 107–28; on the opposite side, Maione, Paologiovanni, ‘Organizzazione e repertorio musicale della corte nel decennio francese a Napoli (1806–1815)’, Fonti musicali italiane 11 (2006): 119–173Google Scholar; and finally, Arnold Jacobshagen, ‘Cantare e parlare nell'opera italiana: un equivoco storiografico’, Il saggiatore musicale 1/16 (2009): 123–8.
31 ‘At the Teatro dei Fiorentini and at the Teatro Nuovo … an impresario's good luck relies on the support rightly given by the audience to the comedians Casacciello, Luzio, [Felice] Pellegrini, [Carolina] Miller’ (‘Nel teatro de’ Fiorentini e nel teatro che conserva il nome di Nuovo … tutta la fortuna degl'impresari è fondata sul favore del pubblico accordato non a torto agli attori comici Casacciello, Luzio, Pellegrini, la Miller’); Pietro Napoli Signorelli, Vicende della coltura nelle Due Sicilie dalla venuta delle Colonie straniere sino a’ nostri giorni:… Seconda edizione napoletana (Naples: s. e., 1811): vol. 8, 111–12.
32 Cf. Salvatore Di Giacomo, Celebrità napoletane (Trani: Vecchi, 1896): 131–44.
33 Dr. Burney's Musical Tours in Europe, ed. Percy A. Scholes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959): vol. 1, 241 (‘a man of infinite humour; … the pleasantry of this actor did not consist in buffoonery nor was it local, which in Italy, and, indeed, elsewhere, is often the case; but was the original and general sort as would excite laughter at all times and in all places’). See also Lucio Tufano, ‘Intertestualità e parodia nella commedia per musica napoletana: il caso dell’Armida immaginaria di Giuseppe Palomba e Domenico Cimarosa (1777)’, Studi goldoniani 18 (2021): 145–74.
34 ‘Arrive le bon Domingo: c'est le fameux Casacia, le Potier de Naples, qui parle le jargon du peuple. Il est énorme, ce qui lui donne l'occasion de faire plusieurs lazzis assez plaisans. Quand il est assis, il entreprend, pour se donner un air d'aisance, de croiser les jambes: impossible; l'effort qu'il fait l'entraîne sur son voisin: chute générale, comme dans un roman de Pigault-Lebrun. Cet acteur, appelé vulgairement Casaciello, est adoré du public; il a la voix nazillarde d'un capucin.’ Stendhal (Henri Beyle), Rome Naples et Florence: Troisième édition (Paris: Delaunay, 1826): 167–8.
35 Giornale delle Due Sicilie (4 October 1816), extensively quoted in Gioachino Rossini, La gazzetta, ed. by Philip Gossett and Fabrizio Scipioni, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2002): xxxiv–xxxv.
36 ‘Attore eccellente, naturale, disinvolto e sommamente caratteristico’: Johann Simon Mayr to his wife Lucrezia Venturali, 10–11 September 1813; Il carteggio Mayr. III. 1810–1817, ed. Piera Ravasio (Bergamo: Fondazione Donizetti, 2013): 211.
37 The picture can be seen in Rossini 1792–1992: Mostra storico-documentaria, ed. Mauro Bucarelli (Perugia: Electa, 1992): 174. It refers, as the title reads, to the opera La casa da vendere by Andrea Leone Tottola and Hippolyte Chelard, interpreted by Casaccia in 1815.
38 The same has been said of his father, Antonio; see Tufano, ‘Intertestualità e parodia’, 164–6.
39 The birth of this opera is described in detail in Rossini, La gazzetta, xxi–xxiv.
40 Carteggio Mayr, 227–9, 279–80.
41 Fiamma Nicolodi, ‘L'attività dei teatri fiorentini sotto Ferdinando III (1814–1824) nel giudizio della “Gazzetta di Firenze”’, in Musiche e musicisti nell'Italia dell'Ottocento attraverso i quotidiani. Atti del convegno ‘Articoli musicali nei quotidiani italiani dell'Ottocento: una banca dati – artmus’ (Ariccia: Aracne, 2017), 23–54, here 51.
42 ‘Ora Scrivo per il Teatro dei Fiorentini un'Opera Buffa che ha per tittolo La Gazetta Il Dialetto Napolitano che non troppo capisco forma il dialogo e lo sviluppo di questa azione; il cielo mi assisterà?’, in Gioachino Rossini: Lettere e documenti, Vol. IIIa: Lettere ai genitori, ed. Bruno Cagli and Sergio Ragni (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2004): 136.
43 ‘Scrivo come un angelo’, Gioachino Rossini: Lettere e documenti, Vol. IIIa, 43.
44 ‘Finalmente mi Sono Levato dal Stomaco un gran Peso. L'opera dei Fiorentini Intitolata La Gazzetta ha fatto un Furore, e tutti sono Sorpresi come abbia io potuto mettere in Musica Il dialetto Napolitano con tanta facilita e effetto. vi assicuro che non ho inteso mai il mio cuore palpitare come Lo intesi La prima Sera di questa rapresentazione’. Gioachino Rossini: Lettere e documenti, Vol. IIIa, 146.
45 The Table is derived and adapted from Rossini, La gazzetta, xxxiv, and is also indebted to Marco Mauceri, ‘La gazzetta di Gioachino Rossini: fonti del libretto e autoimprestito musicale’, in Ottocento e oltre: Scritti in onore di Raoul Meloncelli, ed. Francesco Izzo and Johannes Streicher (Rome: Pantheon, 1993): 115–49.
46 Rossini, La gazzetta, xxxi.
47 However, in the same semiseria genre, the farsa L'inganno felice (1812) was widely acclaimed throughout Italy.
48 ‘La Sciabran, Curioni, Pelegrini e Casaciello m'hanno Servito a Maraviglia. Barbaja è contentone ed 'io me la godo’, Gioachino Rossini: Lettere e documenti, Vol. IIIa, 146.
49 Every quote is henceforth drawn from the libretto of the premiere: LA | GAZZETTA | DRAMMA PER MUSICA | DI | GIUSEPPE PALOMBA | DA RAPPRESENTARSI | NEL TEATRO DE’ FIORENTINI | Nella Estate dell'anno | 1816. | [frieze] | NAPOLI | DALLA STAMPERIA FLAUTINA | 1816. A facsimile has been published in Marco Mauceri ed., La gazzetta (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2003): 217–75.
50 LO SPOSO | DEL CILENTO | COMMEDIA PER MUSICA | DI | ANDREA DE MASE | DA RAPPRESENTARSI | NEL TEATRO DE’ FIORENTINI | Per prima opera dell'anno | 1811. | [frieze] | [line] | IN NAPOLI MDCCCXI. | Con licenza de’ Superiori, 9.
51 LO SPOSO | DEL CILENTO | COMMEDIA PER MUSICA | DI | ANDREA DE MASE, 9.
52 The musical examples, including titles and measure numbers, are drawn from the respective critical editions in the Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini series published by the Fondazione Rossini, Pesaro: Rossini, La gazzetta; Id., La scala di seta, ed. by Anders Wiklund, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 1991). Square brackets and other editorial symbols are omitted; short scores are by the author of this article.
53 It is worth noting that the finaletto is almost never a place for crescendo in Rossinian operas.
54 I am referring to Melina Esse, ‘Rossini's Noisy Bodies’, Cambridge Opera Journal 1/21 (2009): 27–64.
55 Rossini, La gazzetta, xxxiii.
56 ‘While the beautiful voice of Pellegrini [as Filippo] is always the same, his singing is sometimes more lively: in the first act's Quintetto and in all the other ensembles he shows how strong the value of art could be.’ (‘Se la bella voce di Pellegrini è sempre la stessa, il suo canto è di tratto in tratto più animato: nel quintetto del primo atto ed in tutti gli altri pezzi d'unione egli dimostra quanto possa il valore dell'arte’), Giornale delle Due Sicilie, 4 October 1816, quoted in La gazzetta, xxxv.
57 Noticing these connections in the libretto (especially with Il barbiere di Siviglia Act I finale), the editors concluded: ‘whatever suggested to Rossini the reuse of this material [from Il barbiere], it seems that, finally, he did not compose the ensemble’ (‘qualsiasi cosa abbia suggerito al compositore l'uso di questo materiale [from Il barbiere], non sembra, comunque, averlo spinto di fatto alla composizione dell'ensemble’), La gazzetta, xxxiii.
58 Cicero, Dario Lo and Gossett, Philip, ‘Tre sconosciuti autografi rossiniani e la collezione del Conservatorio di Palermo’, Rivista italiana di musicologia 47 (2012): 204–21Google Scholar; Gossett, Philip, ‘Das neu entdeckte Quintett aus Rossinis La gazzetta’, La gazzetta: Zeitschrift der Deutschen Rossini Gesellschaft 22 (2012): 2–10Google Scholar. Finally, Fondazione Rossini has added to the critical edition of La gazzetta an entire volume with the score and critical commentary of the Quintetto: Gioachino Rossini, La gazzetta … Partitura [N. 4bis] Quintetto Atto Primo, ed. by Fabrizio Scipioni, Edizione critica delle opere di Gioachino Rossini (Pesaro: Fondazione Rossini, 2019).
59 Lis.: Lisetta; Alb.: Alberto; Fil.: Filippo; Dor.: Doralice; Pom.: Pomponio. The libretto and score examples are drawn from La gazzetta … Quintetto Atto Primo. Self-borrowings are highlighted in bold.
60 Lis.: He? Alb.: She? Fil.: How come? Dor.: What? / Pom.: He, she, what's the matter?
61 All: (A dizziness is already / roaming inside my head, / and suspicion is giving my heart / dull and gloomy beats)
62 Lis.: You said ‘Filippo’, / but what does that have to do this man? / Pom: I said that I had arranged your marriage with Filippo: / and he is that very Philip, of Macedon. / Alb: You promised to me your daughter; / now, where is she? / Pom.: This is the daughter I was talking about: / you can take her as a wife. / Dor.: Whom are you giving to him? / It's me, to whom this man swore love and faithfulness. / Pom.: And his Lordship / came here to tell me such a joke? / Alb.: Your daughter is already married. / Pom.: Married? Alb.: Sure; / her bridegroom is right there. / Pom.: What's going on?
63 Lis.: I don't know anyone but Filippo; / I don't love anyone but Filippo; / I don't want anyone but Filippo, / and I want to marry Filippo. / Alb.: I don't love anyone but Lisetta, / I know only Lisetta, / I desire only my Lisetta, / and I want to marry Lisetta. / Pom.: You won't have Filippo / and you won't have Lisetta, / I will take a knife / and cut your belly open, fickle girl. / What a despicable marriage, / between a noble family and an innkeeper! / No, my lord, it will never happen, / I will slaughter, wreck, sink you, / you false daughter, / you rascal.
64 All: I feel like my head / was in a horrid forge, / where a continuous whisper / is growing without pause; / and where two heavy hammers / alternate / their strokes, / making the air roar. (exeunt)
65 Libretto quoted (with minor printing errors corrected) from IL TURCO | IN ITALIA | DRAMMA BUFFO | PER MUSICA | IN DUE ATTI | DA RAPPRESENTARSI | NEL | R. TEATRO ALLA SCALA | PER PRIMO SPETTACOLO | Dell'Autunno del 1814. | [frieze] | MILANO | [linea] | DALLE STAMPE DI GIACOMO PIROLA | dicontro al suddetto R. Teatro. Ger.: Geronio; Nar: Narciso; Zai.: Zaida; Sel.: Selim; Fior.: Fiorilla.
66 Ger.: Oh! What a strange case, / I no longer recognize my wife. / The same Turkish dresses, everything is the same … / what will I do? / Nar.: I can't leave from here / without you, my Fiorilla. / Zai.: I can't understand / what will be my destiny. Sel: Please follow me to Turkey / and I will marry you. / Fior.: My heart tries to convince me, / but I cannot decide.
67 Pom.: Oh! What a strange case, / I no longer recognize my daughter. / Shall I choose this one or the another one? / I don't really know. / Alb.: (I can't leave from here / without you, my Doralice). / Dor.: (If my father comes here, / what will that unhappy man say?) / Fil.: (Let us leave soon, my beloved Lisetta, / so I can marry you.) / Lis.: (This will give my father / such pain!)
68 Zai., Nar.: (O! pitiful Love, please support / my innocent deception.) / If I am dear to you, / I can't hope for anything better. / Sel., Fior.: (O! pitiful Love, please restrain / the passions of my heart). / If I am dear to you, / I can't hope for anything better. / Ger.: I really am the best of all husbands; / I can't recognize my wife / between these two ladies. / Shall I speak?
69 Alb., Dor.: (O! pitiful Love, please restrain / the passions of my heart. / If I am dear to you, / I can't hope for anything better.) / Fil., Lis.: (O! pitiful Love, please restrain / the passions of my heart. / If I am dear to you, / I can't hope for anything better.) / Pom.: The father that does not / recognize his daughter / is really to be pitied. / Up there they are talking to each other / and I am here on my own.
70 Sel., Nar.: Follow me, then. / Zai., Fior.: I am by your side. / Ger.: I am astounded / and blinded. / A4 (leaving): Let's leave. Ger.: Leave! (he stops them) / Stop! Halt! / Sel: What do you ask for? / What do you wish? / Zai.: Please mind your / own business. / Nar.: This is Geronio, / please come here soon. / Fior.: I understand, / that is my husband. / Ger.: You shall stay / and you won't leave: / I want my wife, / who is just here. / A4: Here, your wife? / Are you going mad? / Ger.: I want my wife! / Choir: (jostling against him): What a fuss! / All: You will find / her elsewhere. / Ger.: Halt! Nobody / shall leave.
71 Fil., Alb.: Follow me then. / Lis., Dor.: I am by your side. / Pom.: And I, the donkey!, / am dumbfounded. / Fil., Alb., Lis., Dor. (leaving): Let's leave. Pom.: Leave! / Stop! Halt! / Alb: What do you ask for? / What do you wish? / Dor.: Please mind your / own business. / Fil.: This is Pomponio, /please come here soon. / Lis.: My heart is filled / with fear. / Pom: Don't move, by Jove, / I could cut and tear to pieces / even Mahomet. / Where is Lisetta? / A4: Why are you / overdoing it? / Pom.: I want my daughter. / Choir: What a fuss! /You will find her / elsewhere. / Pom.: Nobody / shall leave from here.
72 Fior., Zai., Sel., Nar.: This cursed old man / will cast suspicion on us; / hush! Let's go away / before a fight breaks out. / Ger.: Ah! This cursed Turk / makes me shudder with rage and spite … / Please, hear me, / please let me speak. / Choir: This cursed old man is fidgeting, / crying, being naughty. / Hush! Go away, / don't bother us anymore. (They want to leave: Don Geronio is mad at them and hurls himself between them: the two couples retire on two opposite sides: the Choir jostles against him and among this chaos they sing the following ‘a5’).
73 This line, although not in the libretto, is present in Rossini's autograph score. A 4 and Choir.: With that noise / he will make people rush here. / Hush! Let's go away / before a fight breaks out. / Pom.: Ah! You are / hustling my body! / But please, hear me, / please let me speak. / Choir: This cursed madman is fidgeting, / crying, being naughty. / Hush! Go away, / don't bother us anymore.
74 Nar., Fior., Sel., Zai.: He is a madman. Do you hear him? / (Better to flee) / Hold him tight! Don't let him … / (my beloved, please do not doubt). / She is neither this one nor the other one … / you are wrong, it is only / a figment of your imagination. / Ger.: I am not mad! Please listen to me … / Do you want to kill me? / I only want my wife … let me speak … / Is she this one? Or the other one? / My head cannot decide between them. / Choir: You are a madman … listen … / one should never come to make trouble. / Maybe you are telling the truth, / but please, now let it be. / She is neither this one, nor the other one … / you are wrong, it is only / a figment of your imagination. (Selim and Zaida leave from one side, Narciso and Fiorilla from the opposite; thereafter the Choir leaves too; Geronio is left alone, frantic and desperate.)
75 Nar., Fior., Sel., Zai.: He is noisy. Do you hear him? / Better to flee. / Hold him tight! Don't let him … / (my beloved, please do not doubt). / She is neither this one nor the other one … / you are wrong, it is only / a figment of your imagination.
76 LA | GAZZETTA | Dramma buffo | IN | DUE ATTI, | MUSICA | DI | ROSSINI, Paris, Schonenberger, [1855]; see Rossini, La gazzetta, Critical commentary, 23, 172–3. Ricordi's piano-vocal score repeated Pomponio's previous lines. The manuscript libretto is held in I-Mr, shelfmark LIBR00079: La Gazzetta | Dramma per musica | di | Gius:e Palomba | Musica di Rossini, c. 12v.
77 Gossett, ‘Compositional methods’, 82.
78 ‘La musica era radicalmente ripensata, qui Rossini, che pure redasse un nuovo autografo, per lo più non va oltre una semplice operazione di trascrizione e di adattamento al nuovo testo, per la cui redazione il poeta era stato costretto a ricalcare fedelmente gli schemi metrici e strofici dei pezzi da utilizzare. Segno evidente che il suo interesse era tutto rivolto alla nuova opera seria’. Bruno Cagli, ‘All'ombra dei gigli d'oro’, in Rossini 1792–1992. Mostra storico-documentaria, 161–96, here 178.
79 Francesco Orlando, Per una teoria freudiana della letteratura (Turin: Einaudi, 1990): 60; discussed in Fabrizio Della Seta, ‘“Ma infine nella vita tutto è morte!”. What does Il trovatore tell us?’, Studi verdiani 24 (2014): 11–41.
80 ‘una sorta di “tinta rossiniana” tout court. L'effetto che ne risulta all'ascolto è ciò che potremmo chiamare “la parvenza del noto”: suona come se fosse già conosciuto, anche se conosciuto di fatto non è. E mi è facile allora addurre l'esperienza avuta con due bambini che, dopo aver incontrato La Cenerentola a Pesaro, sentendo poi alla radio un crescendo rossiniano tra i tanti esclamarono “È Rossini!”, pur non avendo mai udito quelle specifiche note in vita loro’ (‘a sort of “tinta rossiniana”. The result is something that we could name “an appearance of what is known”: it sounds as though we know it, even if in reality we do not. I could mention an experience of mine: two children listening to the radio after seeing La Cenerentola in Pesaro, hearing a crescendo, cried out “It is Rossini!”, though it was the first time they had heard that specific music’): Beghelli, ‘Dall’ “autoimprestito” alla “tinta”’, 81.
81 Gioachino Rossini: Lettere e documenti, Vol. IIIa, 136, 159, 175, 177.
82 ‘In questo benedetto paese non vi è che Rossini che piaccia; tutti gli altri maestri antichi, e moderni son diventati zeri a fronte di questo giovine’. Fabbri, Paolo, Rossini nelle raccolte Piancastelli di Forlì (Lucca: LIM, 2001): 27–8Google Scholar.
83 ‘Ed ho inteso co’ miei orrecchi il Ré di Sassonia dire con il Ré di Napoli, che la Musica d'oggidì è alquanto guastata dalla eccedente istromentatura. Il Ré di Napoli a lui rispose, che Ciò era succeduto solamente dopoché Mozart, ed in Conseguenza i Tedeschi han riformata La musica in Italia: Ma proruppe Meternik con enfasi, e disse = Rossini è il solo che piace con tutto ciò; – Egli è il vero Genio musicale del Mondo, al che tutti dissero Si' Gherardo Bevilacqua in a letter to Giuseppe Rossini, 10 May 1819; Lettere e documenti, Vol. I, 371.
84 Tacitus, Historiae, I, 36; ‘omnia serviliter pro dominatione’, referred to Otho's behaviour towards the people.