Description
Pietro Mascagni (1863 - 1945) The composer of some fifteen operas, Pietro Mascagni isbest remembered for his most successful exercise in operatic realism,Cavalleria Rusticana. He was born in Livorno in 1863 and later studied music atthe Milan Conservatory, where his teachers included Ponchielli. Dismissedbefore the completion of his course, he earned a living as a double bass playerat the Teatro dal Verme and then as a conductor in a travelling opera company, beforewinning unexpected success in 1888 in a competition for one-act operas mountedby the publisher Sanzogno. One of three winning operas, Cavalleria Rusticanawas staged at the Teatro Constanzi in Rome in 1890 and won immediate success.It was performed in the following year in Philadelphia and in New York and atthe Shaftesbury Theatre in London and in 1892 was mounted at Covent Garden. Mascagni's later career was markedly less successful. L'amicoFritz, staged in 1891, has remained in occasional repertoire, but it was therealist Iris, with its exotic setting, that seemed about to equal thepopularity of Cavalleria Rusticana, although its initial success provedtransitory. The French revolutionary opera II piccolo Marat, in 1921, wasgreeted with enthusiasm, but his later achievement as a composer of opera wasconfined to the unsatisfactory Nerone, at a time when he had assumed duties asa conductor at La Scala, after the departure of Toscanini, and becomeassociated in particular with the regime of Mussolini. He died in Rome in 1945. Cavalleria Rusticana is based on a short story byGiovanni Verga, later dramatised to provide a vehicle for Eleonora Duse andtranslated into English, with other works of Verga, by D. H. Lawrence. Theoriginal text belongs to the second period of Verga's writing, in which heconcentrated attention on Sicilian peasant life. Mascagni's music matches thestrong drama of its literary source, creating a work of a strength andintensity that the composer was subsequently unable to match. Synopsis [1] The Prelude to the opera includes three thematicelements that are of later importance. The first of these is associated withthe despair of Santuzza, who still loves Turiddu, in spite of his betrayal. Asecond element makes use of part of the duet between Santuzza and Turiddu inwhich she begs him not to follow Lola into the church, and the third is thesoldier Turiddu's love-song to Lola, sung by Turiddu behind the curtains, andpraising the beauty of his mistress, Lola, wife of Alfio, the teamster. [2] The curtain rises to reveal a village square in Sicily.On the right is a church and to the left an inn, where Turiddu's mother Lucialives. It is Easter morning. At first the stage is empty, and then, as daydawns, peasants, men, women and children, cross the square to the church, whichthey enter during the ensuing scene. The people welcome the sweetness of theday, the beauty of orange-blossom, bird-song and meadows in flower. The menwelcome a day of rest and p
