Wolf-Ferrari, Ermanno

Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari – The Intermezzo and Ritornello from the opera Il campiello

(b. Venice 12th January 1876 – d. Venice 21st January 1948)

Preface
On the evening of the 12th February 1936, the premiere of Wolf-Ferrari’s fifth and final opera based on the writing of Carlo Goldoni, Il campiello, took place at Teatro alla Scala, conducted by Gino Marinuzzi (1882-1945)1. Throughout his life, Wolf–Ferrari had an affinity with the Venetian playwright, writer and lawyer Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793), and used his works as the basis for some of the operas that defined Wolf-Ferrari as a composer whose métier was the re-instigation of opera buffa for an early twentieth century audience2, epitomised by his elegance of compositional language that illustrates the text with music of consummate charm. Wolf-Ferrari’s reputation rests on a several operas written in the years preceding the outbreak of World War One, these include the Goldoni inspired Die neugierigen Frauen (premiered in the Residenz theatre in Munich on 27th November 1903), and Die vier Grobiane (premiered in the Hoftheater in Munich on 19th March 1906)3. Susannens Geheimnis, with a libretto by Enrico Golisciani (1848-1919), was premiered in the Hoftheater in Munich on 4th December 1909, and was followed two years later by a full blown verismo work encompassing passion and madness Der Schmuck der Madonna, with a librettro by Carlo Zingarini and Enrico Golisciani, premiered in the Kurfürstenoper in Berlin on 23rd December 1911. Wolf-Ferrai’s final opera before the outbreak of war was Der Liebhaber als Arzt, again with a libretto by Enrico Golisciani, premiered in the Hoftheater in Dresden on 4th December 1913 and based upon Molière’s play L’amour médecin …

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