MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


 REVIEW

Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

alternatively
CD: AmazonUK AmazonUS
Download: Classicsonline


Ermanno WOLF-FERRARI (1876-1948)
La vedova scaltra (The Shrewd Widow) - Commedia lirica in three Acts, libretto by Mario Ghisalberti, after the play by Carlo Goldoni (1931)
Rosaura - Anne-Lise Sollied (soprano); Milord Runebif - Maurizio Muraro (bass); M. Le Bleau - Emanuele D’Aguanno (tenor); Il Conte di Bosco Nero - Mark Milhofer (tenor); Don Alvaro di Castiglia - Riccardo Zanellato (bass); Marionette - Elena Rossi (soprano); Arlecchino - Alex Esposito (bass-baritone); Birif - Claudio Zancopè (bass); Folletto - Luca Favaron (tenor); Un servo di Don Alvaro - Antonio Casagrande (actor)
Orchestra and Chorus of the Teatro La Fenice, Venice/Karl Martin
rec. live, Teatro La Fenice, Venice, Italy, 13, 15 February 2007
The Italian libretto is available at the Naxos website.
NAXOS 8.660225-26 [75:25 + 66:17]
Experience Classicsonline

The Venetian dramatist Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793) seems always to have been somewhat underrated in the English-speaking world. For most English audiences notions of theatrical comedy have been so thoroughly formed by the experience of Shakespeare that there is a real difficulty in responding to comic drama which uses rather different idioms - hence the relative neglect of Molière, too (and Molière was an important model for Goldoni). The loss is considerable - Goldoni is a master craftsman of the theatre and his comedies are full of subtle details and a well-developed awareness of stage possibility. His work has repeatedly proved of interest to composers working within the tradition of opera buffa. Galuppi wrote some 13 operas in collaboration with Goldoni - the best-known of them nowadays being Il Filosofo di Campagna (Venice, 1764); four years earlier Rome saw the premiere of Piccinni’s La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola, Goldoni’s libretto for which was based on Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela. (and the opera was actually performed in London in 1766; Paisiello’s Il ciarlone of 1764 was based on Goldoni's La pupilla; Antonio Salieri’s La locanderia (1773) Giuseppe Sarti’s Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode (1782) set a version of Goldoni’s Le nozze. Such a list might be extended considerably, but enough works have been listed to make it entirely understandable that when a later composer such as Wolf-Ferrari wanted to attempt a kind of updating of opera buffa, the plays of Goldoni should have been a natural place to turn.

In fact Wolf-Ferrari turned to Goldoni on some five occasions - Le donne curiose (1903), I Quattro Rusteghi (1906), Gli amanti sposi (1916), La vedova scaltra (1931) and Il Campiello (1936). Goldoni’s original play, La vedova scaltra was written around 1748, when Goldoni had just begun work with the theatre company run by the actor-manager Gerolamo Medebach based at the Teatro Sant’ Angelo in Venice. He wrote several plays a year and one connecting thread was the way in which they gradually moved away from the traditions of the commedia dell’arte, especially in the use of masked character. Only one such character survives in La vedova scaltra - the waiter Arlecchino, who becomes increasingly important to the working out of the plot, in ways which, on the one hand, hark back to the clever servant of ancient Roman comedy and, on the other, offer some anticipations of a ‘factotum’ such as Rossini’s Figaro. The central plot of the opera involves a widow wooed by four suitors of different nationalities (Italian, French, Spanish and English) - not altogether unlike the first two acts of The Merchant of Venice. The widow, Rosaura, has - like Portia - a witty companion (in this case she is called Marionette). The plot, in other words, is thoroughly grounded in the traditions and archetypes of the European comic tradition and offers obvious opportunities for satire and sentiment alike.

Wolf-Ferrari responds to Ghisalberti’s libretto (firmly based on Goldoni’s play) with music equally well grounded in the relevant music tradition of comic opera. His music is essentially tonal and not without its echoes of Rossini, but neither is he frightened to make use of the occasional more strikingly ‘modern’ harmony. We get plenty of good ensemble writing - duets, trios and quartets - and there are relatively few substantial solo arias. Rosaura does get one nice set-piece (‘Nella notturna selva’) and Anne-Lise Sollied handles it very pleasantly and professionally; throughout Sollied characterises the widow with real conviction and she works very well in the several duets and conversations she shares with Marionette. As the maidservant (and like Arlecchino, the name is clearly a self-conscious theatrical reference) Elena Rossi is vocally very vivacious and she articulates very pleasantly the few ‘French’ touches in her music (Marionette, obviously enough, is herself French). There are some nicely Spanish touches for Don Alvaro di Castiglia. All the singers, indeed, acquit themselves pretty well (the one or two quibbles one might make, applying the highest standards don’t significantly spoil one’s pleasure in the work) and nobody lets the side down - in an opera which depends much more on teamwork than individual brilliance. One performer who stands out particularly is the bass Alex Esposito as Arlecchino - who has already had international success in such venues as Salzburg and London as well as at la Scala and in other productions at La Fenice (such as Die Zauberflöte). He has vocal weight and presence, considerable flexibility and a nice dramatic sense which impresses throughout.

Wolf-Ferrari’s orchestral writing is both learned, in the way it alludes to, without merely imitating, an older manner, and also occasionally surprising in its unexpected inventions.

The pleasure I have had from listening to the CD version of this production of La vedova scaltra makes me keen to see the companion DVD (Naxos 2.110234-35 - see review).

If you are already familiar with some of Wolf-Ferrari’s better-known comic operas, such as I quatro rustighi (1906) and Il campiello (1936), you will surely want to make the acquaintance of La vedova scaltra. If not, this engaging performance would be a good place to start an exploration of an enjoyable series of works. Just in case you were wondering, the widow chooses her Italian suitor - but perhaps you would have guessed that that was the outcome!

Glyn Pursglove 

see also review by Göran Forsling 

 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools




Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.