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
Bronx Opera House on stage in Pagliacci was tied by its keeper to a car parked in front of the theater. The Aborn Company was putting on Cavalleria Rusticana after Pagliacci and the keeper whose sympathies were divided between mules and music thought to slip back in the theater and hear an aria or two. When the keeper came out, the red car was gone and so was Beppo the donkey, a ten years veteran of the stage. Common Clay breaks the house record on September 4 (Labor Day) drawing $9,697. John Barrymore is back on the stage of the Bronx Opera House