Zanetto translation by Emilio Praga of François Coppée's play "Le passant" (The passer-by) in which the young Sarah Bernhardt had won fame in the "en travesti" role of Zanetto. "Zanetto" represented a return by Mascagni to the one-act format of his first opera "Cavalleria rusticana", which had premiered in 1890. However, the Renaissance setting of "Zanetto" was a far cry from the gritty contemporary story he used for "Cavalleria rusticana", the work that made him famous. By 1893, Mascagni was simultaneously working on three operas: "Vistilia", based on a novel by Rocco de Zerbi set in ancient Rome; "Guglielmo Ratcliff", which
British National Opera Company Garden deprived the BNOC of its lucrative London seasons which had in the first years subsidised its provincial tours. The company ceased to exist in 1929 following a tax demand for £17,000 which forced it to go into voluntary liquidation. Its last performances were "Cavalleria rusticana" and "Pagliacci" at the Golders Green Hippodrome in London, on 16 April 1929, in a season in which the conductors included Beecham, Barbirolli and Eugène Goossens. The company effectively re-formed as the Covent Garden English Opera Company in September 1929, with Barbirolli as its musical director, and continued under that name until 1938. British