Giacomo Puccini line. "Verismo" is a style of Italian opera that began in 1890 with the first performance of Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana", peaked in the early 1900s, and lingered into the 1920s. The style is distinguished by realistic – sometimes sordid or violent – depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. It by and large rejects the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism. "Cavalleria rusticana", "Pagliacci", and "Andrea Chénier" are uniformly considered to be "verismo" operas. Puccini's career as a composer is almost entirely coincident in time with the "verismo" movement. Only his "Le Villi" and
Herva Nelli del destino", Puccini's "Tosca" (conducted by Eugene Ormandy), and "Un ballo in maschera". In 1951, Nelli reappeared with the New York City Opera, in "Cavalleria rusticana" again, as well as "Aida"; the next year, she portrayed Maddalena de Coigny in Giordano's "Andrea Chénier" (in Theodore Komisarjevsky's production). With the San Francisco Opera, in 1951 and 1952, the soprano sang in "Otello", "La forza del destino" (with Robert Weede), "Aida" (with Mario Del Monaco), "Cavalleria rusticana", "Il trovatore", and "La bohème" (this last on tour to Los Angeles); in 1957, she returned for "Un ballo in maschera". With the Baltimore Civic