Mala Pasqua! Mala Pasqua! Mala Pasqua! (Bad Easter!) is an opera in three acts composed by Stanislao Gastaldon to a libretto by Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana. The libretto is based on Giovanni Verga's play, "Cavalleria rusticana" ("Rustic Chivalry") which Verga had adapted from his short story of the same name. "Mala Pasqua!" premiered on 9 April 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, six weeks before Pietro Mascagni's opera "Cavalleria rusticana" which was also based on Verga's play. Bartocci-Fontana's libretto adds some elements that were not in Verga's original and expands on others. The name of the Santuzza character was also changed to
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