Ermanno Ferretti

Ludwig (or Léon) Minkus does not rank very high on anyone’s list of distinguished composers, but his music nonetheless survives thanks to the tuneful scores he turned out for the ballet, particularly for the choreographer Marius Petipa. And it is probably Don Quichotte that is the best-known today, closely followed by La Bayadère . Until the Russian ballet companies began touring the West in the 1950s and 60s, audiences knew only the pas de deux, which was a staple of many a touring company. But once the Kirov and Bolshoi showed us that there was considerably more to the work, productions began to proliferate. Rudolf Nureyev even made a full-length film of the ballet almost 50 years ago with the Australian Ballet Company, which allows us to see the captivating Lucette Aldous. He then went on to stage the piece for many other companies, including the Paris Opera. Aside from the fact that today we don’t know how much of Don Quichotte is actually the work of Petipa, as it was revived and revised by Alexander Gorsky, among a great many others, rendering meaningless the credit “based upon Marius Petipa,” what Nureyev gives us is his version of the ballet as danced by the Kirov during his time with that company.

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari - Die Neugierigen Frauen - Ulf Schirmer (2015) {CPO 7777392 Official Digital Download rec 2011}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44kHz - Official Digital Download (prestoclassical.co.uk) -> 508 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 276 Mb
Full Artwork (jpg+pdf) -> 72 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 2011, 2015 CPO | 777 7392-2
Classical / Early 20th Century / Comic Opera

Le Donne Curiose premiered in Munich in 1903, numbered among the greatest and earliest successes of the German-Italian composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari. Based on a comedy by Carlo Goldoni, this merry opera tells the story of the inquisitive wives who investigate the mysterious behaviour of their husbands and discover little more than their love of food! Typical figures of the Italian comedy appear in the score, here beautifully performed and recorded under the baton of Ulf Schirmer.