Cavalleria rusticana Cavalleria rusticana Cavalleria rusticana (; Italian for "rustic chivalry") is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic "verismo" operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called "Cav/Pag" double-bill with "Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo. In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed
Cavalleria rusticana was as the theme for a regular radio broadcast, "Symphony of the Rockies," which featured "a small string group playing light classical music" in the 1930s and 1940s over Denver radio station KOA, then owned and operated by the NBC network. It "was a 'feed' to the entire network from the KOA studios." Apart from video recordings of live performances, there have been several cinematic versions of "Cavalleria rusticana", the most notable of which are: The opera's symphonic Intermezzo has figured in the sound track of several films, most notably in the opening of "Raging Bull" and in the finale