Pasticcio Opera in Britain: History and Context

This study overturns twentieth-century thinking about pasticcio opera, redefining it as method not genre, and recontextualising it among many artforms which created new works from pre-existing parts. Its history is interwoven with society’s transition from a predominantly oral to literate culture and evolutions in conceptualising the self.

Peter Morgan Barnes is an opera director and research fellow at the University of Bristol