Cavalleria rusticana on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing date and asked his friend Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, a poet and professor of literature at the Italian Royal Naval Academy in Livorno, to provide a libretto. Targioni-Tozzetti chose "Cavalleria rusticana", a popular short story (and play) by Giovanni Verga, as the basis for the opera. He and his colleague Guido Menasci set about composing the
China National Opera Butterfly, Verdi's Requiem as well as Chinese-language opera. In 2008 CNOH toured America with 10 performances of the original creation Farewell My Concubine (modern opera). In the same year CNOH performed Puccini’s Turandot in Cairo Opera House. The repertoire of the company has now expanded to "Madame Butterfly, Eugene Onegin (opera), Carmen (opera), La Traviata, Gianni Schicchi, Turandot, Aida, La Boheme, Rigoletto, The Marriage of Figaro, Otello Cavalleria Rusticana, The Barber of Seville Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Le Roi d'Ys, as well as Chinese-language western-style operas, such as Liu Hulan (opera), Song of the Grasslands, Ayiguli, The Hundredth Bride, Marco Polo