# Stolen / Plagiarised operas in the 1800



## asgartha (Aug 9, 2012)

I have heard in a University lecture in London, that it was quite a common practice back in 1800 to steal and plagiarise new and famous operas. 

The reasoning behind that was that for instance hiring and bringing over the production of a Mozart opera, would be rediculously expensive, so pretty much they would not do it. 

But still, for instance the aristocrats of London, were curious about how the new opera of Mozart was sounding like. 

So what happened, was that theatre owners, would send a composer to Vienna for example to attend the premiere of each opera, and write down / sketch more or less what he heard. 

He would then come back home and start composing the opera again, using his notes. 

I remember clearly the professor saying that there are hundreds of Don Giovanni "versions" that were created more or less like that, in various countries. 

I have been google searching to find any comments about this practice, but havent been able to find any. 

Does anyone know anything about this isuue, can anyone conform it? Is there bibliography related to all that? 

I am researching on copyright and how it evolved, so this is something I need to investigate, but do not know where to start or where to look.... 

Thank you!


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## Bardamu (Dec 12, 2011)

Music history is based on plagiarism, even the composer you cited did it.
Not just that but there are instance of auto-plagiarism, Rossini is very known for it (that's how he could write some masterpiece operas in just a few weeks).

There is this interesting article written in italian, hope it can help you:
http://www.konsequenz.it/Estetiche del plagio/15 Storia estetica del plagio.htm


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