The cycloaddition between methyl (E)-2-oxo-4-aryl-3-butenoates (2 a-d) and cyclopentadiene, in addition to the expected normal Diels-Alder (DA) adducts endo-3 a-d and exo-4 a-d, gives the less expected endo-5 a-d products of the [4+2] hetero-Diels-Alder (HDA) reaction in which the alpha-ketoester behaves as a heterodiene. If a comparison is made between the thermal and the scandium(III) triflate-catalyzed conditions, the periselectivity changes and whereas under thermal conditions the main products are those from the DA reaction (3 a-d), in the presence of Sc(OTf)3 (OTf=triflate), the HDA products 5 a-d become largely predominant. The reactions are enantioselectively catalyzed by the scandium(III) triflate complex of (4'S,5'S)-2,6-bis[4'-(triisopropylsilyl)oxymethyl-5'-phenyl-1',3'-oxazolin-2'-yl]pyridine (1) and both the DA and the HDA products are obtained with excellent enantiomeric excess, up to >99% ee. The X-ray crystallographic structure determination of 5 c assigns it the 4R,4aS,7aR absolute configuration. The thermal retro-Claisen rearrangement of 3 c into (4R,4aS,7aR)-5 c allows the correlation of their absolute configuration, and 3 c has therefore the 2R,3R configuration. By analogy the same absolute configuration can be assigned to 3 a,b,d and 5 a,b,d, and the stereospecific thermal Claisen rearrangement of the optically active 5 a,b,d into 3 a,b,d completes the correlation between their absolute configuration. The [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements can be easily carried out under catalytic conditions with scandium(III) triflate, which promotes the equilibration between 3 a-d and 5 a-d, with a different degree of enantioselectivity characterizing the process starting from 3 a-d or 5 a-d. The unambiguous attributions of the configuration to the products allows us to propose a rationale of the stereochemical outcome of the catalyzed cycloaddition and to investigate the reaction mechanism of the competing DA and HDA reactions and shifts in products distribution by acid catalysis.