Leader, MONTAGUE BREARLEY
Conductor,
STANFORD ROBINSON
Italian Ballet Music
Generally speaking, ballet has played a less important part in Italian than in French opera. But tonight's programme gives ample proof that this is due to the taste of the Italian public, not to any lack of flair on the part of Italian composers.
The programme might equally well be described as ' An Hour of Little Known Music by Well-Known Composers '. To the average listener Ponchielli is as completely a ' one-opera composer ' as Mascagni. But here, for once, La Gioconda is replaced by the unknown Prodigal Son, Cavalleria Rusticana by the rarely heard Iris. Even Puccini is represented by excerpts from two of his least familiar operas : Le Villi, his earliest work for the stage, and Manon, which, after heroically struggling for some time with Massenet's Marion, is now nearly as dead as Aubcr's. As this very charming Minuet shows, it deserves resurrection.