Opera After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" and Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci" that came to dominate the world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini's "La bohème", "Tosca", and "Madama Butterfly". Later Italian composers, such as Berio and Nono, have experimented with modernism. The first German opera was "Dafne", composed by Heinrich Schütz in 1627, but the music score has not survived. Italian opera held a great sway over German-speaking countries until the late 18th century. Nevertheless, native forms would develop in spite of this
Cavalleria rusticana an LP, it is available on CD under several historical recording labels. A double-bill performance of "Cavalleria" and "Pagliacci" was transmitted as the first broadcast by New York City's Metropolitan Opera on 11 December 1910. Radio pioneer Lee de Forest talked Giulio Gatti-Casazza, the Met manager, into sending the program over the airwaves by using a backstage radio transmitter and a rooftop antenna, "using a long fishing pole for his mast." Enrico Caruso and Emmy Destinn were in the leading roles. Few listened. There were no radios. But public receivers had been set up in several well-advertised locations in New