page_title: Cavalleria rusticana
section_title: Subsequent performances
hierarchical_section_title: Cavalleria rusticana / Performance history / Subsequent performances
caption_attribution_description: Postcard published circa 1900 of Gemma Bellincioni as Santuzza, and her husband, Roberto Stagno, as Turiddu, in the 1890 première of Cavalleria rusticana
context_page_description: Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called Cav/Pag double-bill with Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
context_section_description: Although Mascagni had started writing two other operas earlier (Pinotta, premiered in 1932, and Guglielmo Ratcliff, premiered in 1895), Cavalleria rusticana was his first opera to be completed and performed. It remains the best known of his fifteen operas and one operetta (Sì). Apart from Cavalleria rusticana, only Iris and L'amico Fritz have remained in the standard repertory, with Isabeau and Il piccolo Marat on the fringes of the Italian repertoire. Its success has been phenomenal ever since its first performance. At the time of Mascagni's death in 1945, the opera had been performed more than 14,000 times in Italy alone.
  In 1890, following its run of sold-out performances at the Teatro Costanzi, the opera was produced throughout Italy and in Berlin. It received its London premiere at the Shaftesbury Theatre on 19 October 1891 and its Covent Garden premiere on 16 May 1892.
  American producers vied with each other (sometimes through the courts) to be the first to present the opera in that country. Cavalleria rusticana finally had its American premiere in Philadelphia at the Grand Opera House on 9 September 1891, followed by a performance in Chicago on 30 September 1891. The opera premiered in New York on 1 October 1891, with two rival performances on the same day: an afternoon performance at the Casino, directed by Rudolph Aronson, and an evening performance at the Lenox Lyceum, directed by Oscar Hammerstein.
  The opera received its first performance at the Metropolitan Opera on 30 December 1891 in a double bill with a fragment of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, and has since received over 700 performances there.
  The opera was played during the 1920s in African-American theaters in Chicago. For example, the Vendome, featuring the orchestra of Erskine Tate, played music from this opera. Notably, Louis Armstrong performed and memorized the trumpet solo, coming out of the pit and mounting the stage to play it.
caption: Gemma Bellincioni as Santuzza, and her husband, Roberto Stagno, as Turiddu, in the 1890 premiere of Cavalleria rusticana
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