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'Cavalleria Rusticana' was as much at home with us in its first year as 'L'Elisir d'Amore' is now in its sixtieth or seventieth." "But it isn't," we protested, "denationalized. What can be more intensely Italian than an Italian opera is anywhere?" "You're right," the reader owned, as the reader always must, if honest, in dealing with the writer.
Succedet igitur, ut arbitror, haud ita multo post, pro rusticana seculi nostri ruditate captatrix illa communi-loquentia robur animi virilis omne, omnem virtutem masculam, profligatura nisi cavetur." A too prophetic remark, which has been in fulfilment from the year 1680, to the present 1815.
Then he felt the ridiculousness of looking after his common sense on a moonlight night in June; also, he knew that he lied. The song had ceased, but the musician lingered, and the keys were touched to plaintive harmonies new to him. He had come to Plattville before "Cavalleria Rusticana" was sung at Rome, and now, entranced, he heard the "Intermezzo" for the first time.
When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana accompanies his song with the crack of a driving-whip.
I had arrived at my last two twenty-lire notes. I was going to finish up with a ten-lire dinner, then spend four lire for entrance and a seat at the Carlo Felice to hear "Cavalleria Rusticana," leaving part of six lire for bed, morning coffee, and other sundries, besides twenty odd to carry on the war with before I got my advance on the steamer.
"Cavalleria Rusticana," an opera in one act, words by Signori Targioni-Tozzetti and Menasci, music by Pietro Mascagni, was written in 1890, and was first performed at the Costanzi Theatre in Rome, May 20, of that year, with Gemma Bellinconi and Roberto Stagno in the two principal rôles. It had its first American production in Philadelphia, Sept. 9, 1891, with Mme.
Leoncavallo, though older than Mascagni, must be regarded as in a certain sense his follower, since his most popular work, 'Pagliacci, was undoubtedly inspired by 'Cavalleria Rusticana. The story begins with the arrival of a troupe of travelling comedians, or Pagliacci, in an Italian village. All is not harmony in the little company.
But the fact remained that Cavalleria Rusticana flourished at the Opera Comique, and Pagliacci at the Opera: Massenet and Gounod were more frequently performed than anybody else, and the musical trinity Mignon, Les Huguenots, and Faust had safely crossed the bar of the thousandth performance. But these were only trivial accidents: there was no need to go and see them.
I have spent almost all of the trip sitting on the platform and enjoying the sight of the queer peasants and the soldiers and old villages. Tonight I shall be in "Paris, France" as Morton used to say and I shall get clean and put on my dress clothes but whether I shall go see Yvette Guilbert or Rusticana again I do not know.
Out of the magic box came once more sweet strains this time those of Cayalleria Rusticana, which play so longingly upon the noblest passions of the soul. The magic box played its entire repertoire, which fitted so well the mood of the disconsolate listeners. The first air was repeated, and the second. This was enough too much.
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