Cavalleria rusticana Cavalleria rusticana 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 an 1880 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. In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed
Cavalleria rusticana an LP, it is available on CD under several historical recording labels. A double-bill performance of "Cavalleria" and "Pagliacci" was transmitted as the first broadcast by New York City's Metropolitan Opera on 11 December 1910. Radio pioneer Lee de Forest talked Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met manager, into sending the program over the airwaves by using a backstage radio transmitter and a rooftop antenna, "using a long fishing pole for his mast." Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn were in the leading roles. Few listened. There were no radios. But public receivers had been set up in several well-advertised locations in New