"Mi vuoi tu corbellar"--Die Opere Buffe von Giovanni Paisiello--Analysen und Interpretationen (review)

"Mi vuoi tu corbellar"--Die Opere Buffe von Giovanni Paisiello--Analysen und Interpretationen. By Christine Villinger. (Mainzer Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 40.) Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 2000. [ix, 444 p. ISBN 3-7952-1020-8. DM 165.]

This dissertation on Giovanni Paisello was written under the supervision of Christoph-Helmut Mahling who, besides being the Doktorvater of Christine Villinger, is also editor-in-chief of the Mainzer Studien. The work comprises four main sections: "Theoretical Considerations Regarding Opera Buffa and Its Terminology in the Eighteenth Century," "Local Differences in Dramaturgy and Performance Practice," "Musical Aspects of the Opera Buffa of Paisiello," and, finally, "Reception of Paisiello's Operas to 1800." Divisional terms like "Teil" and "Kapitel" are eschewed, as are any numerical or alphabetical subdivisions, making it impossible to identify conveniently any particular section. The hierarchy of divisions is established only in the table of contents by the employment of typefaces ranging from boldface uppercase, plain uppercase, bold mixed case, to normal type. Apparently the absence of identifying symbols or terms confused even the author since she allowed the subtitle "Theoretical Discourse on the Aesthetics of Opera Buffa" ("Die Auseinandersetzung der Theoretiker mit der Ästhetik der Opera buffa") to run as header through the introduction and as first subheading of the "Theoretical Considerations" section.

As these headings suggest, the study sets itself very wide parameters ranging from a discussion of genre, via aesthetic and socio-economic contexts, to formal analytical investigations, and ending with reception history. No wonder that some topics receive rather short shrift while others are treated in loving detail. The aesthetic of the opera buffa, for example, does not deserve a separate heading, nor is the section on the term "opera buffa" and the theory of the comic (pp. 19-24) more than a cursory overview of material covered more thoroughly elsewhere. In particular, the notion of the comic in the buffa style is sufficiently meager to have been excised to advantage. On the other hand, the investigations of the state of buffa operas in Naples (1766-99), Rome (1766 and 1776), Venice (after Baldassare Galuppi and Carlo Goldoni!), St. Petersburg (during Paisiello's stay at the court of Catherine the Great), and Vienna (ca. 1784, during the reign of Joseph II) are of considerable interest. The most satisfying treatment is given to the political, social, and theatrical analysis of the comic opera conditions in Naples; the most dissatisfying to the description of the situation in Venice, in part due to the decision to pass over the history of comic opera before Paisiello in near silence. One wishes--perhaps selfishly--that the author had expanded her horizon beyond the immediate context of this particular composer. Is an understanding of Paisiello's role, contributions, even professional choices possible by merely sketching his immediate environment without offering a longer and wider-angled historical perspective? Neither the names Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo Leo, nor Galuppi are even included in the index of composers, librettists, and musical works mentioned in the text. Given the book's parameters, such complaints are inevitable, unjust though they might be.

The analytical section is very useful, though it rehearses much material which has been discussed elsewhere by Charles E. Troy, Pietro Weiss, Marita McClymonds (none of whom, by the way, are mentioned in the bibliography), and by others. The problem of this entire section is not so much one of content as one of method. If Paisiello'soeuvreis subjectedto atypological-analytical overview, where we are led from representative examples of einteilige cavatinas (culled from various operas) to strophic, to two-part, to three-part arias, then to the freie aria form (the author's terminology) and on to arias a due and arias con pertichini (one of the strongest sections) with a welter of purely verbal descriptions, we lose any sense of how these forms interact within a particular opera or how they function theatrically. The reader would have been...