Cavalleria rusticana Germany in 1909. As in live performances of the opera, recordings of the work have often been paired with Ruggero Leoncavallo's "Pagliacci". In addition to the original Italian, recordings of the work in the English, French, German, and Hungarian languages have been released. Mascagni himself conducted the opera in two recordings, the better-known of which is the 1940 EMI recording made to mark the 50th anniversary of the opera's premiere. The performance by the La Scala orchestra and chorus with Lina Bruna Rasa as Santuzza and Beniamino Gigli as Turiddu also has a spoken introduction by Mascagni. Originally released as
Mala Pasqua! his attention to composing his first opera, "Fatma", an opera-ballet in four acts. However, he set the project aside in 1888 when the music publisher Sonzogno announced a competition for one-act operas, open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. The three winners (selected by a jury of prominent critics and composers) would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno's expense. Gastaldon decided to enter with an opera based on "Cavalleria rusticana". His librettist, Giovanni Domenico Bartocci-Fontana, a lawyer by training and a poet by inclination, wrote to Verga asking permission to adapt