La finta giardiniera by Pasquale Anfossi and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The article considers issues that arise when comparing Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera La finta giardiniera (Munich, 1775) and the opera of the same name by Pasquale Anfossi (Rome, 1774), which appeared a year before Mozart’s. This kind of comparison, which is a traditional subject for Mozart studies, has been undertaken repeatedly. However, almost 40 years have passed since the publication of Volker Mattern’s most extensive study on this topic (1989). During this time, views on the musical context of the 1770s, as well as ideas about the specifics of the operatic genres of that era and the norms of their poetics, have changed noticeably. The article re-formulates the features of the sentimentalist variety of opera buffa, clarifies the extent to which the anonymous libretto La finta giardiniera corresponds to them, and, using the example of a comparison of the music of several key numbers, demonstrates the extent to which Anfossi and Mozart followed the genre canon or the dramatic innovations proposed by the librettist. As a result, Mattern’s main conclusion about the “individual style” that first clearly manifested itself in this Mozart opera is supplemented by significant comments and subject to critical revision. Keywords: La finta giardiniera, Pasquale Anfossi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Niccolò Piccinni, Carlo Goldoni, Italian opera buffa, sentimentalism, poetics of opera libretto For citation: Lutsker, P. V. (2025). La finta giardiniera by Pasquale Anfossi and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Versions of two opera capitals (Rome and Munich). Contemporary Musicology, 9(4), 49―81. https://doi.org/10.56620/2587-9731-2025-4-049-081

MOZART · Musical · Opera · Poetics · Central European and Russian historical studies · Diverse Musicological Studies · Musicology and Musical Analysis