Cavalleria rusticana on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing date and asked his friend Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, a poet and professor of literature at the Italian Royal Naval Academy in Livorno, to provide a libretto. Targioni-Tozzetti chose "Cavalleria rusticana", a popular short story (and play) by Giovanni Verga, as the basis for the opera. He and his colleague Guido Menasci set about composing the
Brandon Jovanovich in Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos" with the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Boston Lyric Opera; the title role in Verdi's "Don Carlos" with the Houston Grand Opera; Turiddu in "Cavalleria rusticana" at the Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Angers-Nantes Opéra, Palm Beach Opera and New York City Opera; Luigi in Puccini's "Il tabarro" with the San Francisco Opera and Angers-Nantes Opéra; Boris in Janáček's "Káťa Kabanová" at the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Steva in Janáček's "Jenufa" at the Bayrische Staatsoper and Angers-Nantes Opéra; the title role in Britten's "Peter Grimes" with Teatro di San Carlo in Napoli; Pollione in Bellini's