Cavalleria rusticana sensation, with Mascagni taking 40 curtain calls and winning the First Prize. 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
Herva Nelli del destino", Puccini's "Tosca" (conducted by Eugene Ormandy), and "Un ballo in maschera". In 1951, Nelli reappeared with the New York City Opera, in "Cavalleria rusticana" again, as well as "Aida"; the next year, she portrayed Maddalena de Coigny in Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" (in Theodore Komisarjevsky's production). With the San Francisco Opera, in 1951 and 1952, the soprano sang in "Otello", "La forza del destino" (with Robert Weede), "Aida" (with Mario Del Monaco), "Cavalleria rusticana", "Il trovatore", and "La bohème" (this last on tour to Los Angeles); in 1957, she returned for "Un ballo in maschera". With the Baltimore Civic