Cavalleria rusticana libretto, sending it to Mascagni in fragments, sometimes only a few verses at a time on the back of a postcard. The opera was finally submitted on the last day that entries would be accepted. In all, 73 operas were submitted, and on 5 March 1890, the judges selected the final three: Niccola Spinelli's "Labilia", Vincenzo Ferroni's "Rudello", and Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana". There have been two other operas based on Verga's story. The first, "Mala Pasqua!" (Bad Easter!) by Stanislao Gastaldon, was entered in the same competition as Mascagni's. However, Gastaldon withdrew it when he received an opportunity to have
Paulo Szot studied at Jagiellonian University in Poland. He began singing professionally in 1990 with the National Song & Dance Ensemble "Śląsk". Later, he made his professional opera debut in a production of "Il barbiere di Siviglia" at the Municipal Theatre of São Paulo in 1997. Since then, he has performed with the New York City Opera, the Palm Beach Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra de Marseille, and Vlaamse Opera, among others, in such operas as "L'elisir d'amore", "La bohème", "Don Giovanni", "Cavalleria rusticana", "Pagliacci", "Carmen", "Così fan tutte", "Le nozze di Figaro" and "Maria Golovin". In March 2010 he made