Counting musicians: a London catalogue aria in context

Catalogue arias were a regular feature of 18th-century continental opera, but as it happens, in the 125 or so Italian opere buffe staged in London between before 1800, this aria type was a comparative rarity. The catalogue was an identifiable buffa aria sub-genre, and its text could list almost anything: the 18th-century London audience heard lists of food, employers and cooking. Probably the first such aria they heard was the list of estates in Il filosofo di campanga in the 1760–61 season, the first in which opera buffa was a serious force on the London stage. This article briefly examines the use of the genre in London, but then turns to its employment in a new English comic opera called The Travellers in Switzerland by Henry Bate Dudley with music compiled by William Shield. It argues that while on the face of it the aria lists Italian musicians and is an apparent satire on the pretentions of the type of dilettante that could be found at the Opera House, salons and musical gatherings of the capital, it also comments on the artistic pretensions and delusions of The Travellers in Switzerland’s main character, Count Fripponi