Question: Niccola Spinelli, was an Italian composer of operas, premiered in Rome on 9 May 1890; the first prize went to Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni, who was an Italian composer, most noted for his operas, and which 1890 masterpiece?

Context articles: Pietro Mascagni
A basso porto
Lorenzo Perosi
Francesco Paolo Frontini
Domenico Monleone
Pietro Antonio Coppola
Pietro Auletta
Martino Frontini
Niccola Spinelli
Cavalleria rusticana

Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni (] ; 7 December 1863 – 2 August 1945) was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece "Cavalleria Rusticana" caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the "Verismo" movement in Italian dramatic music.
 While it was often held that Mascagni, like Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, "L'amico Fritz" and "Iris" have remained in the repertoire in Europe (especially Italy) since their premieres.
 Mascagni said that at one point, "Iris" was performed in Italy more often than "Cavalleria" (cf. Stivender).
A basso porto ("At the Lower Harbor") is an opera in three acts by composer Niccola Spinelli.
 The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Eugene Checchi which is based on Goffredo Cognetti's 1889 play "O voto".
 The opera premiered to critical success at the Cologne Opera on April 18, 1894, sung in a German translation by Ludwig Hartmann and Otto Hess.
 The work is widely considered Spinelli's greatest composition, and the prelude to the opera's third act has been programmed by numerous orchestras for performances in concert.
Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi (21 December 1872 – 12 October 1956) was an Italian composer of sacred music and the only member of the Giovane Scuola who did not write opera.
 In the late 1890s, while he was still only in his 20s, Perosi was an internationally celebrated composer of sacred music, especially large-scale oratorios. Nobel Prize winner Romain Rolland wrote, "It's not easy to give you an exact idea of how popular Lorenzo Perosi is in his native country."
 Perosi's fame was not restricted to Europe.
 A 19 March 1899 "New York Times" article entitled "The Genius of Don Perosi" began, "The great and ever-increasing success which has greeted the four new oratorios of Don Lorenzo Perosi has placed this young priest-composer on a pedestal of fame which can only be compared with that which has been accorded of late years to the idolized Pietro Mascagni by his fellow-countrymen."
 Gianandrea Gavazzeni made the same comparison: "The sudden clamors of applause, at the end of the [19th] century, were just like those a decade earlier for Mascagni."
 Perosi worked for five Popes, including Pope St. Pius X who greatly fostered his rise.
Francesco Paolo Frontini (Catania, August 6, 1860 – Catania, July 26, 1939) was an Italian composer.
 He studied music with his father, composer Martino Frontini; he also studied the violin with Santi D'Amico, playing a concert with him at the town concert hall at the age of 13.
 At 15 his first composition, a "Qui tollis", was played at the city cathedral, under the direction of Pietro Antonio Coppola.
 In 1875 Frontini matriculated at the conservatory in Palermo, where he studied with Pietro Platania; from there he passed to the conservatory in Naples, where he received his diploma in composition under the tuition of Lauro Rossi.
Domenico Monleone (January 4, 1875 – 15 January 1942) was an Italian composer of operas, most noted for his opera "Cavalleria rusticana" of 1907, which for a while rivalled the success of Mascagni's work of the same name which was from the same source.
 The work was the third opera to be based on Verga’s 1884 theatrical adaptation of his own short story, "Cavalleria rusticana", Stanislao Gastaldon’s "Mala Pasqua" (1888) being the first, and Mascagni's famous opera (1890) being the second.
Pietro Antonio Coppola (11 December 1793 – 13 November 1876) was an Italian composer and conductor.
 Born in Castrogiovanni, he was trained by his father and at the Naples Conservatory.
 He is chiefly known for his many operas, of which his most famous, "Nina pazza per amore", premiered at the Teatro Valle in Rome in February 1835.
 While his works have rarely been performed after the 19th century, during his lifetime they enjoyed success in major opera houses in Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain.
 As a conductor he was particularly active at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon.
 He died in Catania at the age of 82.
Pietro Antonio Auletta (1698–1771) was an Italian composer known mainly for his operas. His opera buffa "Orazio" gained popularity after being mis-attributed to Pergolesi as "Il maestro de musica".
Martino Frontini (Catania, 1827 – Catania, 1909) was an Italian composer and writer who worked with many Catanian musicians in the second half of the nineteenth century; he was the father, and first teacher, of composer Francesco Paolo Frontini.
 He founded the town band, which he led for thirty years; he also directed the band of the regional hospital during his career.
 He composed numerous works, becoming especially known for his waltzes; in larger forms, he wrote a three-act lyric opera ("Marco Bozzari"), an ""azione coreografica"" ("Fatima") and a fantastic operetta ("La Rivolta dell'Olimpo").
 As a writer he published a biography of Pietro Antonio Coppola in 1876.
 He died in Catania in 1909.
Niccola Spinelli (born Turin, Italy 1865 – died Rome 18 October, 1909) was an Italian composer of operas.
 Born in Turin, the son of a jurist, he studied composition at the Naples Conservatory under Paolo Serrao.
 His opera "Labilia" won the second-place prize in an 1890 opera competition organized by Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno, and premiered in Rome on 9 May 1890; the first prize went to Pietro Mascagni for "Cavalleria rusticana".
 His most well-known work is "A Basso Porto" ("At the Lower Harbor"), which premiered in Cologne on 18 April 1894 to great popular acclaim.
Cavalleria rusticana (] ; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play and short story written 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.