By Daniel J. Wakin [NY Times, 14 September 2010]

They called it a pasticcio — pastry — a mishmash of arias by different composers, sometimes given new texts and often chosen by the singers. The practice of throwing together an opera from snippets, also called a pastiche opera, was standard operating procedure from the late-17th to late-18th centuries: a practice unthinkable in our age of textual authenticity.