The Baroque Libretto: Italian Operas and Oratorios in the Thomas Fisher Library at the University of Toronto by Domenico Pietropaolo and Mary Ann Parker (review)

Let us begin on a provocative note and simply ask: what is the point, in this day and age, of publishing in hardback, at a price currently around £40, a catalogue of Italian opera and oratorio librettos held by a university library, when the same information ought to be accessible instantly and without cost to scholars internationally through online publication, either as part of the regular university catalogue or, better still, as a separate, linked resource appearing under the name of the same authors, thereby enabling them to take full academic credit for it? The answer has, inevitably, to lie within the concept of ‘added value’: such a volume needs to contain adjuncts that not only go beyond what an orthodox catalogue raisonné would be expected to supply but are in fact more user-friendly in a hard-copy format than online. The two authors (whose mode of cooperation and individual responsibilities are not explained at any point) show themselves well aware of the importance of these additional elements as the main justification for hard-copy publication. As we shall see, however, they demonstrate a slightly less firm grip on what should make up these additions: their extent, their coverage, and, most crucially of all, their relationship to the raw data presented on the pages containing the libretto catalogue proper.

Evaluation of the volume can conveniently start with a simple account of what it contains. A preface (pp. ix–xii) outlines the parameters of the catalogue, which contains the librettos of primarily musical dramatic works (i.e. operas, oratorios, intermedii, comic intermezzi, and serenatas, but not plays with incidental music) held by the Thomas Fisher Library at the University of Toronto. The majority of these works have Italian texts; these, together with the libretti of a few Latin oratorios performed in Italy, form a bloc of 193 chronologically ordered entries comprising the main section of the catalogue (pp. 57–203). Smaller numbers of libretti in French (16 entries) and English (7 entries) bring up the rear in separate appendices (pp. 207–18 and 219–25 respectively). The period covered is 1600–1728.

Next comes a group of essays collectively entitled ‘Introduction to the Baroque Libretto’. They start with a one-page review of the collection (p. 3) and continue with discussions of ‘The Opera Libretto’ (pp. 4–12), ‘The Music’ (pp. 12–26, with six music examples), ‘Dance in Italian Opera’ (pp. 26–9), and ‘The Oratorio’ (pp. 29–34); five pages of endnotes and sixteen plates with illustrations conclude this section.

Following the catalogue and its appendices we find a bibliography (pp. 228–33) and separate indexes of titles, librettists, composers, cast members, dancers, dedicatees, performance venues, places of publication, and production personnel.

Perhaps in anticipation of objections, the preface devotes considerable space to justifying the 1728 cut-off date (the start date of 1600, is, of course, unobjectionable, since this year, close to the start of operatic history, is that of the earliest libretto in the collection, that of Peri’s La Dafne). Various reasons, all weak, are given. The death in 1728 of Giovan Mario Crescimbeni, a leading light in Arcadia, the advent of the ‘Neapolitan’ galant style in the mid-1720s, and the initiation of Metastasio’s activity as a librettist around the same time are all cited un-convincingly in support. Indeed, the online catalogue of the Thomas Fisher Library, with its much briefer entries, shows that the collection contains libretti for the original Roman productions of Vinci’s Semiramide riconosciuta (1729) and Artaserse (1730), which have therefore to be excluded, leaving Gismondo, re di Polonia (1727) as the sole work by this composer admitted to the catalogue. Needless to say, the library has numerous post-1728 settings...