Determining in an unequivocal and definitive way what the Italian dramma per musica was in the eighteen century is only apparently an easy task. Starting with a discussion of the definition of eighteen century Italian dramma per musica as a variable spectacular text, the paper attempts to provide a concise taxonomy useful for critically assessing the situations that can arise when analysing the sources and tradition of opere impasticciate and pasticci. Changes in operatic texts, in all their components (the poetry, music, visual and proxemic aspects) can occur at various levels of their evolutionary textual tradition, in different functions, manners, and for different reasons. The change of operators and other environmental contexts may lead to adaptive reworking, to a varying degree, of one or more of the linguistic elements constituting the work: verse, music, scenes and so on. It should be noted that the documentation of one or more levels may, naturally, be partly or completely lost.
Furthermore, some possible new research themes have been suggested as an attempt to understand the ways and reasons for the peculiarities of the adaptations of Italian dramma per musica in foreign countries. Within this context the work’s adaptations created by the composers may reveal facts that deserve to be studied more systematically. For instance, they may have an almost involuntary cognitive, formative function. Adapting a text forces one to reflect on its dramaturgy, to formulate solutions and find ideas that can make it still theatrically effective, It can even, if necessary, transform the maestro into a proto-director who guides the musician-actors. It is appropriate to investigate this point and verify, for example, whether and how the adaptations introduced in the various situations by the different maestri in some central European theatres could lead to a richer language of musical gestures correlated with an actor’s personal gestural expression which, perhaps, was more explicit or more disguised in those countries.
