I quatro rusteghi

I quatro rusteghi (The Four Curmudgeons, sometimes given as School for Fathers) is a comic opera in three acts, music by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari to a text by Luigi Sugana and Giuseppe Pizzolato based on Carlo Goldoni's 18th-century play I rusteghi. The opera is in Venetian dialect (hence "quatro" in place of "quattro").

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Hoftheater in Munich on March 19, 1906. The work was first performed in the United States by the New York City Opera on October 19, 1951. Wolf-Ferrari's most successful full-length work, it is still regularly performed.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast[1] 19 March 1906 (Conductor: Felix Mottl)
Lunardo	bass	Georg Sieglitz
Margarita	mezzo-soprano	Margarethe Preuse-Matzenauer
Lucietta	soprano	Ella Tordek
Simone	bass	Paul Bender
Marina	soprano
Maurizio	bass	Josef Geis
Filiperto	tenor	Hans Koppe
Cancion	bass	Alfred Bauerberger
Felice	soprano	Hermine Bosetti
Riccardo	tenor	Raoul Walter

Synopsis

The action takes place in 18th century Venice.

Four curmudgeonly husbands vainly attempt to keep their women in order. The women decide to teach their menfolk a lesson by allowing Lunado's daughter Lucieta to see Filipeto, the son of Maurizio, before their pre-arranged marriage, even though the men have forbidden this.

References

Notes

1. "Almannaco 19 March 1906" (in Italian). AmadeusOnline. Retrieved 2 September 2010.

Sources

• Anderson, James, The Complete Dictionary of Opera & Operetta Wings Books, 1993 ISBN 0-517-09156-9