I quatro rusteghi is a comic opera

Comic opera

Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...

 in three acts, music by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was an Italian composer and teacher. He is best known for his comic operas such as Il segreto di Susanna...

 to a text by Luigi Sugana and Giuseppe Pizzolato based on Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Goldoni

Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...

's 18th-century play I rusteghi

I rusteghi

The Boors, also known as The Cantankerous Men , is a comedy by Carlo Goldoni. It was first performed at the San Luca theatre of Venice towards the end of the Carnival in 1760. It was published in 1762...

. The opera is in Venetian dialect.

Performance history

The opera was first performed at the Hoftheater in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 on March 19, 1906. The work was first performed in the United States by the New York City Opera

New York City Opera

The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...

 on October 19, 1951. Wolf-Ferrari's most successful full-length work, it is still regularly performed.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere cast 19 March 1906 (Conductor: Felix Mottl Felix Mottl Felix Josef von Mottl was an Austrian conductor and composer. He was regarded as one of the most brilliant conductors of his day. He composed three operas, of which Agnes Bernauer was the most successful, as well as a string quartet and numerous songs and other music... )
Lunardo	bass Bass (voice type) A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...	Georg Sieglitz
Margarita	mezzo-soprano Mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...	Margarethe Preuse-Matzenauer
Lucietta	soprano Soprano A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...	Ella Tordek
Simone	bass	Paul Bender
Marina	soprano
Maurizio	bass	Josef Geis
Filiperto	tenor Tenor The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...	Hans Koppe
Cancion	bass	Alfred Bauerberger
Felice	soprano	Hermine Bosetti Hermine Bosetti Hermine Bosetti née von Flick , was a German coloratura soprano.Bosetti sang her debut in Wiesbaden as "Ännchen" in Der Freischütz. In 1900 she was a member of the Vienna State Opera and from 1901 until 1924 she was a star singer with the Bavarian State Opera...
Riccardo	tenor	Raoul Walter

Synopsis

The action takes place in 18th century Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

.

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.

Sources

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