CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA, grand opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni (lib retto by Targioni-Tozzetti and Menasci, founded on a tale by Verga), first produced at Rome, 17 May 1890. Awarded the prize in a competition for one-act operas offered by the publisher Sozogno, (Cavalleria Rusticana) launched its composer into world-wide promi nence and founded a school of well-defined proportions. All Italy went wild over the work and Mascagni was hailed as the legitimate successor of Verdi. Everywhere the opera created a furore. In New York two managers vied with each other to be the first in the field, with the result that two productions were giyen in New York on 1 Oct. 1891 and the question of priority rights had to be settled by the courts. In the meantime, both Philadelphia and Chicago had heard it. The compressed emo tional appeal of the work swept critical judg ment off its feet. The hot-blooded passion of the story was raised to a higher power by the music, turbulent, theatrical, but persuasive. The
vein tapped by the composer was not all pre cious metal and it petered out suddenly; but while it lasted, the rewards were rich. The Intermezzo alone, an eloquent advance agent of the opera, must have poured a fortune into the composer's pockets. The Siciliana sung by Turridu, Santuzza's romance, the Drinking Song and Lola's aria are all melodious and easily remembered. The orchestration is often crude and blatant, but not unsuited as a vehicle for the everistico and melodramatic musical ex pression. Operatic annals contain few such sensational and meteoric careers as that of Rusticana,) with the fortunes of which its composer's fame has been inextric ably bound up. Emma Calve's impersonation of Santuzza is one of the outstanding histrionic features of modern operatic history. For the outline of the story see CAVALLERIA RUSFICANA.