L'amico Fritz L'amico Fritz L'amico Fritz () is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni, premiered in 1891 from a libretto by P. Suardon (Nicola Daspuro) (with additions by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti), based on the French novel "L'ami Fritz" by Émile Erckmann and Pierre-Alexandre Chatrian. While the opera enjoyed some success in its day and is probably Mascagni's most famous work after "Cavalleria rusticana", today it is performed far more rarely than "Cavalleria", which remains Mascagni's only enduringly popular work in America (though in Italy, "L'amico Fritz" and "Iris" are still in the active repertoire). The "Cherry Duet" between Fritz and Suzel
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