Pietro Mascagni
Compositeur
Pietro Mascagni had his breakthrough at the age of 25: his one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana was a huge success when it premiered in May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome, and the captivating musical drama also established the new style of verismo (vero = true), which brought the lives of poor farmers and fishermen to the opera stage with a socially critical approach. Cavalleria rusticana subsequently broke all performance records – and made Mascagni, who continued to write mainly operas (only a few of which, however, such as L’amico Fritz, were to remain in the repertoire with any regularity), a one-hit wonder.
Pietro Mascagni, born in Livorno on the west coast of Tuscany in 1863, studied at the local Istituto Musicale from 1876 under Alfredo Soffredini, who encouraged him to become a composer against his parents’ wishes. After the success of his cantata In filanda, he transferred to the conservatory in Milan, where he was taught by Amilcare Ponchielli and Michele Saladino. Without completing his studies, Mascagni broke off his training at the age of 20 to travel around the country as the conductor of an operetta company after a period as a double bass player at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan. In 1887, he took up the position of municipal “maestro di suono e canto” in Cerignola. A year later, Mascagni happened to come across an advertisement by the Milanese publisher Edoardo Sonzogno, who had launched a competition for one-act operas. Mascagni put aside the score of his first opera Guglielmo Ratcliff, on which he was currently working, and composed Cavalleria rusticana for the competition. The jury selected the one-act opera by the newcomer from a total of 73 entries, and he became one of Italy’s most famous composers overnight. After the triumphant premiere, Mascagni produced numerous new works at leading opera houses and embarked on a conducting career that took him to Vienna, Paris and London, and then on to the USA and South America. Until his last opera Nerone (1935), the composer, who successfully courted the favour of the fascist regime and took over the management of the Teatro alla Scala in 1944 after Arturo Toscanini’s departure, was unable to repeat the success of Cavalleria rusticana.
