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
Cavalleria Rusticana (1959 film) Donna." Alan Burke had directed "Prima Donna". Singer Marie Tysoe later recalled "That was also performed live. We had monitors strategically placed in the sets so that the singers could always see the conductor." The TV critic from the "Sydney Morning Herald" called it "no more than a partial success". He praised its "well planned and well designed sets" but thought it lacked movement and felt the singing "was often heavy and uncertain" and acting "either stagey or inhibited, and sometimes both.. It seems that the initial requirements for local televised opera is singers who can adapt their style to