Il ballo delle ingrate

Synopsis#

The stage shows the mouth of the Underworld. Venus and Cupid visit Pluto, King of the Underworld, and complain that the arrows from Cupid’s bow are no longer effective on the women of Mantua, who are scorning their lovers. Cupid asks Pluto to bring the spirits of women who rejected love up from the Underworld to show what fate awaits them in the afterlife. Pluto agrees and the spirits of the “female ingrates” enter and dance “two by two…with grave steps” as Pluto sings a warning to the women in the audience. As said ingrates return to the underworld, one of them sings a lament regretting she must leave the “pure and serene air.”

Recordings#

• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Sestina) Les Arts Florissants, conducted by William Christie (Harmonia Mundi, 1982)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda) Red Byrd, Parley of Instruments (Hyperion, 1992)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, Tirsi e Clori and Tempro la cetra) Ensemble Tragicomedia, conducted by Stephen Stubbs (Teldec, 1993)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Tirsi e Clori and music from L’Orfeo) Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner (Erato, 1993)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Tirsi e Clori) New London Consort, conducted by Philip Pickett (Decca L’Oiseau-Lyre, 1995)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda) Capella Musicale di S. Petronio di Bologna, conducted by Serge Vartolo (Naxos, 1997)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (with Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda), Concerto Italiano, conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini (Opus 111, 1998)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (as part of a complete recording of Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi - Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals) Concerto Vocale, conducted by René Jacobs (Harmonia Mundi, 2002)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (as part of a complete recording of Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals), La Venexiana, conducted by Claudio Cavina (Glossa, 2005)
• Il ballo delle ingrate, I Fagiolini and Barokksolistene conducted by Robert Hollingworth (Chandos, 2009)
• Il ballo delle ingrate (as part of a complete recording of Madrigali guerrieri ed amorosi - Monteverdi’s Eighth Book of Madrigals), Delitiae Musicae, conducted by Marco Longhini (Naxos, 2017)

Sources#

• The Viking Opera Guide edited by Amanda Holden (Viking, 1993) p. 679
• Notes by Peter Holman to the Hyperion recording listed above (1992)
• Paolo Fabbri Monteverdi, translated by Tim Carter (Cambridge University Press, 1994)

External links#

• Libretto in Italian