Mascagni- Cavalleria Rusticana (Full Score)

Composed before March 1890.

Turiddu: Placido Domingo
Santuzza: Agnes Baltsa
Alfio: Juan Pons
Mamma Lucia: Vera Baniewicz
Lola: Susanne Mentzer

Giuseppe Sinopoli, Philharmonia Orchestra, Chorus of the Royal Opera House, 1990. I do not own this recording.

Mascagni is one of the few composers to achieve STUPENDOUS success with practically their very first work. It was this opera, the dramatic and moving portrait of Sicily, that would make the verismo movement known outside of esoteric Italian dramatic circles and throughout the world.
It was created for the second Sonzogno Concorso of 1888. This contest, created by music publisher (and small rival of the illustrious Ricordi publishing firm) Edoardo Sonzogno, would see various Italian composers submit one-act operas to a panel consisting of critics and musicians. The top three submissions would be staged at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, away from the interference of Ricordi.

By 1889, the deadline year for operatic submissions, it had become clear that Niccolo Spinelli's "Labilia" and Vincenzo Ferroni's "Rudello" were the two favorites of the panelists. These two short operas have swiftly been forgotten. Cavalleria was admired by the jury, but it was nevertheless also criticized by some members as being "supremely banal". After some deliberation, Cavalleria and the other two operas were presented in July 1890.

On 9 May, Labilia earned modest admiration from a small audience. Less than a week later, Cavalleria was presented by the same cast to an even smaller house. It was a complete artistic triumph, much to the bafflement of Mascagni himself. The intense public reaction made the Sonzogno jury reluctantly declare Mascagni the first-prize winner of the contest, while also making Ferroni's "Rudello" be received only with hostility and hisses.

As for the music itself of this opera, the orchestration is somewhat unsatisfying. You can tell that the contrabass player Mascagni viewed the string section as the heart and soul of it all because the woodwinds do virtually nothing but add melodic embellishments or soli to the score, neglecting it of the subtle richness that abounds in Verdi and Ponchielli's works. The stupendous emotional vigor of the ideas could be reinforced with more attention to sonority. In fact, it was for this reason that Ricordi rejected the notion of publishing the score. But Mascagni makes up for this fault with a strong grasp of harmony; he is something of a master when it comes to modulation. Just hear the chromatic mediant motions of 34:25, perfectly fitting to the drama. His harmonic flexibility is seldom found in his contemporaries, not even in Puccini, who treated modulation with a gentler hand.

What I find most unique about the score itself is its transfer of the "dramatic" Verismo to the musical. Cavalleria Rusticana, while having a gripping libretto, is not known for its characters or dialogue. It is the Sicilian environment, how Mascagni illustrates and punctuates it, that sets it apart from everything else. Parts of this opera take extraordinary care to immerse the audience in the setting: the prelude, the intermezzo, and the beginning chorus are only some examples. This is Mascagni's version of a playwright endlessly describing each and every detail of a scene in their play, much like the Italian playwrights did during the Verismo movement. For such a short opera, it is difficult to find another that contains this level of care and detail in its portrayals.

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