This composer is too contemporary to be discussed freely. He has done no great amount of work, and fame came to him in his youth. "Cavalleria Rusticana" is his supreme performance, and there is in it a promise of greater things.
The story is of peasant people in a small Sicilian village, on an Easter day.
Composer: Pietro Mascagni. Authors: Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci.
[Footnote A: The quotations from "Cavalleria Rusticana" are from the English version by Nathan Haskell Dole, Copyright, 1891, by G. Schirmer.]
One fine Easter morning, in a small Italian village, a fop, named Turiddu, came along the little street singing of Lola, an old sweetheart, who, since Turiddu went to serve his required term in the army, had married a wagoner. Turiddu was far from heartbroken, because when he returned and first heard of Lola's faithlessness, he straightway fell in love with a worthier girl--Santuzza. Neither Lola nor Turiddu was a faithful sort, but lived for a good time to-day, leaving luck to look after to-morrow; but it was not the same with Santuzza. She truly loved Turiddu, and being an Italian peasant, very emotional and excitable, it was going to be dangerous for Turiddu to ill-treat her.
If that Easter morning found Turiddu quite gay and free, it found Santuzza full of despair and misgiving, because she knew that her lover had returned to his former sweetheart. Lola's husband, the wagoner, was frequently away from his home, and in his absence his wife had been flirting. In a little village, where everybody knew everybody else, and all of each other's business, Santuzza's companions had learned that Turiddu had thrown his new love over for the old, and instead of pitying her, they had ridiculed and treated her unkindly.
On a Sunday morning, just before the villagers started to church, Santuzza started for Turiddu's home. He lived near the church, with Lucia, his old mother. Santuzza had been thinking all night of what she could do to win her lover back; and at daylight had risen with the determination to go to old Lucia, and tell her how her son had misbehaved. In Italy, even grown sons and daughters obey their parents more promptly than the small children in America ever do. Santuzza, all tears and worn with sleeplessness, thought possibly Lucia could prevail upon Turiddu to keep his word and behave more like an honest man. All the little village was astir early, because Easter is a fête day in Italy, and the people make merry, as well as go to church. The peasants were passing and repassing through the little square as Santuzza entered it. She looked very sad and her eyes were swollen with crying. But no one paid any attention to her as all were going into the church for early mass. After the crowd had gone in, the sound of the organ and of the congregation's voices could be heard in the square. They sang an Easter carol--about flowers and carolling larks and orange blossoms--which did not make Santuzza any the happier; but she went to the door of old Lucia's house and called softly: