Rice & Beans Orchestra* – Dante's Inferno

It's overly obvious that when they scrapped this for release, it was re-written into Fly Me On The Wings Of Love.

For those who love listening to the Discofied Classic Works- The German Trio (Giorgio Moroder/Donna Summer/Pete Bellotte) released an album in 1976 called FOUR SEASONS OF LOVE. The concept was taken from Vivaldi's THE FOUR SEASONS. The following year, Neil Bogart (of Casablanca Records) tried to obtain the rights to SWAN LAKE from the Tchaikovsky Estate, but was turned down. The idea of a discofied SWAN LAKE was to be The German Trio's next project for Donna, but instead became the ONCE UPON A TIME 2-LP set. It is interesting how the album cover imagery of ONCE UPON A TIME could well have been used for a SWAN LAKE cover. Just some disco trivia for trivia's sake.

Spectacular!! Happened to stumble across this when I was searching various 70's disco artists to see if there was anything I wasn't aware of, and this certainly fell under that category. Don't know if it was a good or bad thing discovering this as I definitely would love to add it to my music collection however, I feel my chances for that are very slim. Would be interesting to know why it was never released as it seems like it would have been a huge hit in the clubs around that time.
Note: Loved your review and totally agree.

UPDATE 08/20/2022 - I was able to obtain a copy of this masterpiece, so thrilled. Lush orchestration and melodies, right up there with Romeo & Juliet which I consider to be one of the best concept LP's of the era. IMO, ranks higher than Wuthering Heights, Hunchback and Pinocchio combined. Such a shame never released for all to enjoy back in the good old days.

Magnificent!! You can hear the Pepe Luis Soto's style [eg Fly Me On The Wings of Love], throughout this entire project. How wonderful to come across this work, which is so reminiscent of the disco era, with the great symphony productions based around a previous book or work [Wuthering Heights, Romeo and Juliet, The Hunchback]. And what a work to take on--Dante's Inferno!! This is soaring and captivating and intelligent the entire way through. Can't commend enough...and so very rare and difficult to come across!