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
Amica (opera) from "Cavalleria rusticana", the work then fell into obscurity. One of its few revivals in modern times was on 4 August 2007 at the Festival della Valle d'Itria, using the original French libretto. (It has been released on CD and DVD. See below.). In October 2008, Opera di Roma used the Italian libretto for a new production of "Amica" in collaboration with Opéra de Monte-Carlo and the Teatro Carlo Goldoni in Livorno. Set in the mountains of Savoy around 1900, "Amica" is a classic verismo drama. It recounts a domestic tragedy involving two brothers (Giorgio and Renaldo) and the woman