Music TheoryPrint

CA

Catalogue aria

A catalogue aria is a genre of opera aria in which the singer recounts a list of information (people, places, food, dance steps, etc.). This style was popular in Italian comic opera in the latter

History#

“Madamina, il catalogo è questo” from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni is the most famous example, and is often referred to as " catalogue aria". Leporello notes how many lovers the title character has had in each country he has visited. Pasquale sings two such arias in Joseph Haydn’s Orlando paladino, “Ho viaggiato in Francia, in Spagna” in act 1, which lists the countries to which he has traveled, and “Ecco spiano” in act 2, which rattles off all of his varied musical talents. The clearest antecedent of the catalogue aria of Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte can be found in the 1787 opera, Don Giovanni Tenorio, with which they were both familiar, composed by Giuseppe Gazzaniga on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati. Da Ponte based much of his libretto on Bertati’s, heavily revised for content and language but significantly retaining much of the narrative structure. but they seem to have gone to the next most familiar piece of music rather than digging into research. Platoff notes that catalogue arias were a particular specialty of Bertati.

Examples#

(in chronological order) *“A Lion la Contessa la Cra”, Il viaggiatore ridicolo (1757) by Carlo Goldoni and set by multiple composers *“Voi sapete aliogiato nelle stanze medesime”, (1772) by Giuseppe Gazzaniga and Giovanni Bertati *“Quano vedrai chi sono” (Comte Zeffiro), (1778) by Giuseppe Gazzaniga and Giovanni Bertati *“Contesse, baronesse” (Monsieur de Crotignac), (1781) by Domenico Cimarosa and Giuseppe Petrosellini *“Ho viaggiato in Francia, in Spagna” (Pasquale), Orlando paladino (1782) by Joseph Haydn and *“Ecco spiano” (Pasquale), Orlando paladino (1782) by Joseph Haydn and Nunziato Porta *“I capricci del cervello”, Il ricco d’un giorno (1784) by Antonio Salieri and Lorenzo Da Ponte *“Che sei und grand asino” (Lena), Il mercato de Malmantile (1784) by Josef Bárta and Giacomo Francesco Bussani *“Aprite un po’ quegli occhi” (Figaro), Le nozze di Figaro (1786) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte *“Dell’ Italia ed Alemagna” (Pasquariello), Don Giovanni Tenorio (1787) by Giuseppe Gazzaniga and Giovanni Bertati *“Madamina, il catalogo è questo” (Leporello), Don Giovanni (1787) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte *“Rivolgete a lui lo sguardo” (Guglielmo), intended for Così fan tutte (1789) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte, though not included in the performed version *“Venti mila gigliati ai Tunisini” (Messer), Il re Teodoro in Venezia (1789) by Giovanni Paisiello and Giovanni Battista Casti

See also#

  • Patter song
  • List song

Further reading#

  • Michael Burden, “Counting Italian Musicians; a London Catalogue aria in context”, Early Music, 45/3 (2017), pp. 429–443.
  • , performed by
  • , performed by Victor Torres
  • , performed by Bryn Terfel
  • , performed by Alfredo García