Recorded in 1956, this performing version of Galuppi-Goldoni’s 1754 opera was prepared by the composer Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, who cut much recitative and omitted a pair of minor characters. He will get no argument from me. The 65 minutes of music-theater we get here are charming enough; as is usual in Goldoni’s plays, we get a farmer, a servant, an aristocrat, and a solid member of the bourgeoisie. And they’re all in the countryside, where it is apparently easier to come to terms with social interactivity.
Don Tritemio (Mario Petri, bass) has a daughter, Eugenia (Anna Moffo, soprano) who is in love with Rinaldo (Florindo Andreolli, tenor). We learn at one point that their love is as true as the “undying faith of the turtle dove.” Tritemio, however, wants Eugenia to marry Nardo (Rolando Panerai, baritone), who is a rich farmer, known as “the philosopher”, perhaps because he talks a lot. Lesbina (Elena Rizzieri, soprano) is Eugenia’s maid and confidante, and when Nardo mistakes her for her mistress, she does nothing to disabuse him of the mistake. Mirth and self-knowledge ensue, Nardo actually falls for Lesbina when she confesses her lowly station (“Maid or mistress, women are all the same”), and Eugenia and Rinaldo run away and return–married! Don Tritemio, though dismayed, accepts everything: “Whether for pleasure or for spite/I must make a virtue of resignation”, he and Nardo sing. Curtain.
This performance matters mostly because it offers a young, charming Anna Moffo and fine, idiomatic (for its time) playing by I Virtuosi di Roma. Panerai, normally the most reliable of baritones, sings off-key a great deal; Andreolli, angry a great deal, is too hefty for the 18th century, and the others are acceptable. If you want this type of thing, here it is.
