‘Per desiderio di farsi onore’: Singers and the Adaptation of Arias in Italian drammi per musica of the Early Eighteenth-Century Italy

Within the aesthetic framework of the work concept and author-centred approach to music history, the practice of aria substitution in the eighteenth-century Italian dramma per musica has frequently been viewed as hostile interference with the composer’s authorial intention and attributed to singers’ vanity, laziness and ignorance. However, the substitution of both the texts and musical settings of arias constituted the default production practice in a period in which scores were not conceptualised as fixed texts but functioned as performance materials for specific productions. Moreover, the practice of aria substitution was deeply rooted in the socio-cultural context of opera production and the arts consumption practices of the social elite. A manifestation of period preoccupation with displaying and gauging rank and status, it was crucial to singers’ professional success.

Analysing the reasons for the substitution of three specific arias in revivals of settings by both Hasse and Vinci of Metastasio’s Artaserse in 1730 and 1731, this paper accounts for typical scenarios for this practice in opera production. Rather than focusing predominantly on the arias’ musical parameters, it also evaluates their dramatic features, scope for stage action and potential for engaging period audiences. Brief consideration is also given to two unusual drammi per musica of 1734 featuring an exceptionally high number of arie di tempesta.