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Home , Arturo Colautti, Cavalleria rusticana, Clara Maffei, Edoardo Sonzogno, Eduard Hanslick, Fausto Torrefranca

Verga and Mascagni: The Critics' Response to '' Author(s): Matteo Sansone Source: & Letters, Vol. 71, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 198-214 Published by: Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/736436 Accessed: 02-07-2018 17:49 UTC

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms VERGA AND MASCAGNI: THE CRITICS' RESPONSE TO 'CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA'

BY MATTEO SANSONE

'CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA' this year celebrates its first centenary. The sensational success of the at the Teatro Costanzi in on 17 May 1890 turned the 27-year-old into a famous . Because of the literary source of the (a veristic play by ), critics and reviewers adopted the term '' to define the subject of the opera and, by implication, its - dramatic language. Cavalleria was soon seen as the prototype of a new genre as, in the 1890s, more were written which followed its pattern: low-life subject, small dimensions, coarsely emotional musical setting. Leoncavallo's (1892) and Giordano's (1892) are two outstanding examples, though the latter has disappeared from the repertory. The term first used for Cavalleria became so closely linked with the Young Italian School that ever since critics have been at pains to assess the variable degrees of verismo in different of this group or in different operas by the same composer.' In most cases, the use of the expression 'operatic verismo' has proved unsatisfactory and misleading. It can at best identify the minor genre which originated from Cavalleria rusticana and had some bearing on the evolution of in the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first of the twentieth.2 On the other hand, there existed in opera, irrespective of the veristic movement in , a naturalistic tendency which stemmed from the erosion of the ideological and formal structures of the romantic . By 1890, literary verismo had exhausted its innovative drive and had given way to other trends. Verga himself, in turning his short story 'La lupa' into a libretto for Puccini in 1891-4, moved away from his veristic of the 1880s and created a hybrid that Puccini eventually found himself unable to set.' In any critical assessment of Cavalleria rusticana, a clear distinction should be made between the artistic peculiarities of literary verismo and the merits or short- comings of Mascagni's opera. The two major representatives of the movement- Giovanni Verga (1840-1922) and (1839-1915), both of them Sicilian-achieved their best results in their prose works (short stories and novels). Restraint may be singled out as the dominant feature of Verga's stories and novels of

' The term 'School' should be understood as a conventional grouping of composers with different training and cultural backgrounds and, indeed, with distinct artistic personalities: Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Giordano, Franchetti, Cilea and others. They were all born around the period 1855-65 and in their formative years were ex- posed to the same national and foreign influences (Ponchielli, Verdi, Gounod, Massenet, Bizet, Wagner), which they assimilated in various degrees. A special case has been made for Puccini in terms of his outstanding achievements and cultural inclinations, but his stylistic references are not far apart from the common ground of the group. 2 Alternative denominations to 'operatic verismo' were suggested: 'naturalistic', 'late Romantic', 'post-Verdian', 'Puccinian', 'of the Young School'. The last one is the most comprehensive and the least compromising, since it is mainly based on a historical criterion. See Matteo Sansone, 'Verga, Puccini and La Lupa', Italian Studies, xliv (1989), 63-76.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms the 1880s: restraint of passion and emotion in his portrayal of Sicilian peasants and fishermen; formal restraint in his elaboration of a terse, self-effacing, sapid prose style which almost lets the story tell itself and the characters speak their own minds in their own way. Sensationalism and excess are banished on principle. Violence may occur in the form of murder, but more often it manifests itself in the form of natural calamities, acts of God thwarting all efforts to improve material well-being; and it is endured in a dignified way by the 'defeated'. In this fatal struggle with the elements of a hostile nature and with the hardships of an unrewarding life, Verga's peasants and fishermen acquire a universal, epic dimension. Such is the moral world of I Malavoglia (1881), Verga's masterpiece. A deep pessimism inspires the novelist's vision of this apparently inescapable condition. His conservatism prevents him from envisaging any possible or desirable change. His austere presentation fixes the predicament of his people in a mythical stillness. The naturalistic 'human document' is ultimately turned into tragic . Verga's 'Scene popolari in un atto' Cavalleria rusticana (, Teatro Carignano, 14 January 1884) marked a turning-point in the theatre of post- Risorgimento , both for the originality of the subject matter and for its in- novatory dramatic conception. With Verga's Sicilian peasants, an entirely new world was displayed for the first time on the stage. A well-defined social context pro- vided the ideological background for the behaviour of the characters and justified the final resort to violence. The novelty of the play depended partly on the technique of close-knit dialogues and clear-cut scenes strung together by a tense rhythm which leads quickly and effectively to the catastrophe. But no less important was the language that Verga devised as a means of self-characterization and to achieve an instant localization of moral attitudes and social behaviour. The play was the dramatization of a short story from Verga's collection Vita dei campi (1880). In rewriting the story for the stage, Verga kept most of its features, but he eliminated the economic motivation for the behaviour of Turiddu and Lola and expanded the role of Santa, making her the 'dishonoured' and jealous girl desperately in love with an unscrupulous young man. The unfamiliar Sicilian world had to be made in- telligible to an average Italian audience; the relationship between the individuals and their own society had to be adequately focused if certain customs or patterns of behaviour were to be fully and correctly appreciated. Hence the designation 'scene popolari' accompanying the title of the play (and, after its example, of most veristic plays). The adjective indicated the low-class environment and the choral structure of the scenes. The psychological and dramatic identity of the main characters was focused through the interaction between the individual and the social group (neighbours, fellow workmen). This technique entailed, first, a reduction of the plot to one basic situation containing in itself a logical denouement; and second, a fast- moving action relying on unambiguous, striking signals to mark the progress towards the catastrophe (e.g. Santuzza's curse to Turiddu: 'Mala Pasqua a te!'). The combination of these elements never reached a fully satisfactory balance in any veristic play, with the exception of Cavalleria rusticana (though some reservations should perhaps be made about Santuzza's long speech in Scene 1 and a certain slackening in Scene 6). In minor authors, like the Neapolitan Salvatore Di Giacomo, the environment tended to outweigh the individuals. The over-abundance of spectacular and folkloric details turned verismo into picturesqueness, dramatic build-up into a series of sensational jolts, three-dimensional characters into colour- ful vignettes.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Although the Italian veristic theatre did not match up to the artistic achievements of the novels and short stories, it had a strong, positive effect on the stale national repertory of romantic and bourgeois . The language also benefited from the new veristic models of a supple, full-blooded, direct medium. Furthermore, a new acting style evolved in the theatre in order to render the unsophisticated low- class characters of the 'scene popolari'. Away from the grand, heroic, high-flown postures, veristic interpreters tried to be simple, down-to-earth, natural. The greatest of them all was Eleonora Duse (1858-1924), the first Santuzza. Restraint and naturalness distinguished her approach to the interpretation of the Sicilian pea- sant girl. Reporting on the successful Turin premiere of Verga's play, Eugenio Torelli-Viollier wrote about Duse's acting:4

In the part of the seduced girl who accuses her lover, remaining all the time quiet, restrained, simple, without ever a shout, without ever a violent gesture, she produced highly moving effects and made the spectators shudder and weep.

Duse's new acting technique influenced the veristic interpretative approach of great such as (1864-1950), the first operatic Santuzza, and Emma Calve (1858-1942), who sang the same role in the French premiere of Cavallerza (Opera-Comique, 19 January 1892). In her book of memoirs, Calve' recalled the deep emotion she felt the first time she saw Duse act in La Dame aux cameilias in : 'Quelle revelation! Voila l' auquel il faut aspirer . . . Elle semble appartenir 'a une humanite plus vibrante que la n6tre. Quels accents! Quelle emotion communicative!'5 Calve also saw Duse act in Verga's Cavalleria in . Spontaneity, truthfulness, emotional restraint: these were qualities Verga tried hard to retain in his plays. Cavalleria rusticana was the closest to his great prose works of the early 1880s and retained those qualities in the highest degree. It set a precedent for the plays of Capuana, Di Giacomo and (another Sicilian veristic writer). Verga's close friend (1847-1906) was also influenced, and, with L'onorevole Ercole Mallardi (1884), Tristi amori (1887) and other plays, he experimented with his own brand of verismo tinged with sentiment- alism which would characterize his contributions to for Puccini, for ex- ample La boheme (1896). In July 1888 the publisher advertised in his own periodical II teatro illustrato his second contest for a one-act opera to be written by an Italian composer aged not more than 30 and to be submitted by May 1889. Mascagni's youthful dreams of success and glory were concentrated on the composition of a four-act , Guglielmo RatclaJf (c. 1885), a by translated and adapted by . It was a project he would never be able to realize unless he first made a name for himself (it was eventually staged in 1895). The Sonzogno contest gave him the chance of a lifetime. Cavalleria proved the ideal text to be adapted into a one-act opera. In a flattering letter to Verga, written on 27 March 1890, the composer claimed that the libretto, by his Livornese friends Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and , had faithfully reproduced the play:6

4 Eugenio Torelli-Viollier, 'Rassegna drammatica', Corriere della sera (15 January 1884). All translations in this article are mine unless otherwise indicated. 5 Emma Calve, Sous tous les cielsj'ai chante, Paris, 1940, p. 41. 6 Quoted in Giulio Cattaneo, Giovanni Verga, Turin, 1963, p. 261. Mascagni's reference to a 'first prize' is inac- curate. Sonzogno's committee selected only three (out of 73) operas for public performance at the Teatro Costanzi:

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms I assure you that the libretto has reproduced your Cavalleria almost to the letter, preserv- ing in this way that colour and that ambience which have made your work immortal. Also the theatre Committee [of Sonzogno's contest] praised that libretto, certainly not for the creative part but only for the faithfulness of the transcription ... and if the Commit- tee members came to the decision to choose my opera for the first prize, that is due to the theatrical nature of my music and to the strong and dramatic colour inspired in me by such a true, human, passionate subject.

On the whole, the opera was much less innovative than Verga's play had proved to be a few years earlier. The essential features of literary verismo did not pass into Mascagni's Cavallerza. Verga's formal restraint and impersonality were incompat- ible with the emotional subjectivity of operatic singing. Moreover, the elimination of the minor roles of the 'scene popolari'-the neighbours providing the social background-and their substitution by a chorus of conventional country-folk, in- creased the risk of lapsing into picturesqueness. The operatic transposition of Cavalleria rusticana thus effaced the non-melodramatic, veristic peculiarities of the play and emphasized the easily apprehensible universal feelings of love, jealousy and revenge, capitalizing on the novelty of the low-life 'exotic' environment. The choruses, 's noisy entry (modelled on Escamillo's first appearance in ), Turiddu's drinking-song, the veneer of musical exoticism provided by the 'Siciliana' and Lola's stornello: all were as essential to the success of the opera as they were alien to Verga's 'scene popolari'. Apart from the novelty of the subject, the only authentically veristic elements preserved in the libretto were the vividness of the dialogues, the quick pace of the action and the two forceful shouts ('A te la mala Pasqua, spergiuro!'; 'Hanno ammazzato compare Turiddu!'). There remained, of course, the local colour (religious festival, ritual challenge), enhanced by Mascagni's elemental music. The casual encounter with literary verismo would be of little consequence in Mascagni's subsequent search for feasible texts. Four weeks before the premiere of Cavalleria rusticana in Rome, he was already pressing Targioni-Tozzetti and Menasci for a new libretto. His letter to them gives us an idea of his practical, un- committed approach: 'The genre? At your pleasure. Any genre is good for me, pro- vided there is truth, passion and above all that there is drama, strong drama." Mascagni's production in the years following Cavalleria proves his eclecticism in the choice of librettos. Every literary movement or fashion that evolved in Italy round the turn of the nineteenth century left its mark. When the whole of his production is surveyed-sixteen operas from (c. 1880) to (1935) -it becomes clear how misrepresented he is under the label 'verismo'. That early and unrenewed association cannot be assumed to have been his permanent aesthetic position. In 1910, during the composition of the 'leggenda drammatica' , an adaptation of the Lady legend arranged by , Mascagni was interviewed by Arnaldo Fraccaroli for the Corriere della sera. Asked whether he had fallen back on , Mascagni made one of his memorable statements on the of music: 'Completely; and yet I started with verismo! But verismo kills music. It is in poetry, in romanticism, that inspiration can find wings.'8 If verismo kills music,

Labilia by Nicola Spinelli, Rudello by Vincenzo Ferroni and Cavalleria. The final classification was to be decided after the performance. Cavalleria proved the most successful and won the top prize. 7 Pietro Mascagni, Cinquantenario della 'Cavalleria rusticana'. Le lettere ai librettisti durante la creazione del capolavoro, ed. Giovanni Cenzato, , 1940, p. 36: letter dated 19 April 1890. Arnaldo Fraccaroli, 'Sottovoce', Corriere della sera (18 October 1910).

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms one might wonder how much of it managed to seep into the operatic Cavalleria: pre- sumably not a lethal dose. For the first of his operas to be produced, Mascagni could at least rely on a distinguished literary source such as his imitators would not enjoy. In the 1890s the rise of operatic verismo was marked by a progressive degeneration into excess, sensa- tionalism and picturesqueness which reached its lowest level with a distasteful melodrama, Wolf-Ferrari's I gioielli della Madonna (1911), the quintessence of in the musical theatre.9 A derogatory implication was attached by critics to verismio, and in the course of time it affected any consideration of the literary move- ment in relation to the operas that were loosely grouped under that heading. Ap- plied to a musically advanced work like Puccini's II tabarro (1918), the term 'verismo' seems rather inadequate; yet, the one-act format, the low-class subject and the naturalistic style relate this opera to the genre. Among Puccini's earlier works, exemplifies a false idea of verismo which has reflected negatively on the literary movement. As recently as 1985, in the Cambridge Opera Handbook on Tosca, Mosco Carner defined it as a 'milestone in the relatively short-lived history of verismo' and then stated: '

At the heart of verismo is excess -excess of passion and emotion leading to brutal murder and/or suicide; climax follows climax in quick succession, and no sooner is a mood established than it is destroyed by a contrasting mood.

In that context, Carner meant by 'verismo' the musico-dramatic techniques of the Young Italian School. As such, 'verismo' might be as good as any other label to iden- tify a known product, and Carner would be in agreement with other scholars who adopted the term to define an autonomous trend in the musical theatre, not necessarily connected to the choice of veristic literary texts. " But Carner did relate that meaning to the literary movement. He mentioned Verga, Capuana and, in retrospect, Boccaccio's Decameron and Dante's Inferno (Manzoni's realistic novel I promessi sposi was unaccountably missed out). A misunderstanding of verismo and Verga's art, in particular, seems to underlie such a generalization. As I have said, formal and emotional restraint, not excess, is the dominant feature of Verga's veristic works. Tosca might well be the 'shabby little shocker' of Joseph Kerman's catchy definition, but, if that is the case, the reasons have nothing to do with literary verismo. Puccini, Illica and Giacosa contrived a melodramatic mechanism working at a 'veristic' pace and allowing free play to sentimental and decadent ingredients: Scarpia's sadism and sexual frenzy, Tosca's sensual and possessive nature.

9 It is the last of a series of operas exploiting all the trite commonplaces about , and it was extremely suc- cessful in Germany, where it was first performed. Its direct precedents are Pier Antonio Tasca's A Santa Lucia (1892) and Spinelli's A basso porto (1894). The picturesqueness and sensationalism of the genre are pushed to their extreme limits by the inclusion of all possible ingredients which might titillate the curiosity of an audience: spaghetti-eaters, ragged urchins playing Piedigrotta instruments, street cries, a religious procession accompanied by ritualistic fireworks and folkloric music, a gang of camorrists, sex, two suicides, songs and . 'Une Cavalleria rusticana tripatouill&e par M. ' is a good definition of Wolf-Ferrari's opera suggested in Lucien Solvay, L'Evolution thlatrale, Brussels & Paris, 1922, ii. 183. 0 Mosco Carner, : 'Tosca', Cambridge, 1985, p. 7. Carner reiterates what he wrote in his Puc- czni: a Critical Biography, London, 1958, p. 242. " See, among others, Claudio Casini, 'II verismo musicale italiano' in the beautifully illustrated volume Mascagni, Milan, 1984, pp. 9-28; and Giovanni Ugolini, ' e il problema dell'opera verista', Umberto Giordano, ed. Mario Morini, Milan, 1968, pp. 19-87.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Carner's misconception of literary verismo is by no means an isolated case. An authoritative and direct precedent can be found in Donald Grout's Short History of Opera. In the lean paragraph dedicated to Cavalleria and Pagliacci Grout writes: 2

The goal of the verists is simply to present a vivid, melodramatic plot, to arouse sensation by violent contrasts, to paint a cross section of life without concerning themselves with any general significance the action might have. Verismo is to naturalism what the 'shocker' is to the realistic novel. The -music corresponds to this conception . . . Everything is so arranged that the moments of excitement follow one another in swift climactic succession.

However, a survey of the critical response to Cavalleria rustzcana shows a wide range of opinions on its literary source and verismo in general. In 1891, the music critic of the literary journal Nuova antologia, Girolamo A. Biaggi, drew his readers' attention to the fact than Ricordi's Gazzetta musicale listed no fewer than 52 new Italian operas premiered in 1890. Each of them was classified by the Gazzetta, according to its reception, in one of four grades: 'buonissimo', 'buono', 'mediocre', 'cattivo'. Only two operas were entered under 'buonissimo', Catalani's and Mascagni's Cavalleria rustzcana. Biaggi commented with regret: 'But (the tricks of fortune!) Cavallerza rusticana has already raced through the theatres of half of Europe at a tremendous rate, and poor Loreley has gone from the applause and acclaim of the of Turin to the quiet of the Ricordi Archives and has never appeared again!"3 Later in the year, reviewing L'amzrco Fritz, Biaggi stated drily:'4

. . .we are not at all with those critics and writers who on the strength of Cavallerza rusticana (an opera in one act only, and, what is more, not entirely beautiful, nor pleas- ing, nor praiseworthy) said Mascagni was great, the greatest, a genius, and had no doubt in proclaiming him the continuer and successor of the most illustrious living composer, of Verdi himself.

Eighteen months later, in the same journal, a similar opinion was expressed by Ippolito Valetta at the end of an article on Verdi's . He called Mascagni 'un avventurato improvvisatore' and pointed to Verdi as a 'luminoso esempio' for every- body." One exception was the first review of Cavalleria written for Nuova an- tologza, by Francesco D'Arcais, who had been a member of the selecting committee for Sonzogno's contest. His only negative comments were on Alfio's entry song, con- sidered 'the worst piece', and the duet between Santuzza and Alfio, which he thought disproportionately long. 6 The fresh, coarse, moving melodrama became one of the greatest hits of the cen- tury. The pathos and emphasis of Mascagni's music established an idyllic, reassur- ing image of the Sicilians as harmless, God-fearing peasants who might well resort to violence but only for an individualistic point of honour. At a time of growing social

12 Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera, New York, 1947, 436. In the third, updated edition of the book (with Hermine Weigel Williams, New York, 1988, p. 509) this passage is slightly reworded, but the concept is un- modified. The only change concerns the definition of verismo as 'this typically Italian movement', no longer as just 'the typical Italian adaptation of late nineteenth-century literary and dramatic movements'. Girolamo A. Biaggi, 'Rassegna musicale', Nuova antologia (1 April 1891), 551. 4 Idem, 'Della musica melodrammatica italiana, del M.' Mascagni e dell'Amico Fritz dato alla Pergola di Firenze', ,Nuova antologia (1 December 1891), 540. s Ippolito Valetta, 'I caratteri musicali del "Falstaff"', Nuova antologia (15 June 1893), 662. 6 Francesco D'Arcais, 'La musica italiana e la Cavalleria rusticana del M.2 Mascagni, Nuova antologia, (1 June 1890), 518-30.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms unrest in and, indeed, in the rest of Italy in the early 1890s, such a comforting view would win full support with the middle-class audiences of the dynamic cities of the peninsula. Mascagni's Cavallerza rusticana thus heralded the entry of rural Italy into the aristocratic and bourgeois world of opera; it was hailed as a revolutionary masterpiece by the large moderate strata of the public or branded as a cynical travesty by the intellectual and progressive elites. The universal acclaim for the opera soon overshadowed the popularity of the play, and, much to Verga's regret, the distinctive artistic merits of his work were ig- nored in the harsh criticism of the patronizing conservatism of a libretto which was often confused with the play itself. Such is the case in the article 'Sicilia verista e Sicilia vera' by the theatre critic Eduardo Boutet, published in the Rome newspaper Don Chisciotte on 7 January 1894. It was the period of the 'Sicilian Fasci', an organized working-class movement struggling for decent wages and better condi- tions in the sulphur mines and on the large estates of the island. Under the impres- sion of the alarming dispatches from Sicily reporting the appalling plight of the striking miners and peasants, Boutet launched an attack on Verga and Capuana for misrepresenting or ignoring the 'true' Sicilians and their sufferings, and offering in- stead 'Arcadian' pictures of 'noble savages'. It was a generalized charge against the whole production of the two Sicilian writers, but the specific examples quoted by Boutet to support his argument were taken from Cavalleria rusticana, the libretto of the opera being confused with the play:'7

What a difference from the Turiddus and the Alfios, and little bites on the ear lobe and bad Easters to you and me! The case of the sulphur mine so mercilessly exposed is alone enough to make you feel your heart is breaking . .. Instead, neighbour Alfio would come to the fore and sing merrily: 'Oh, what a lovely job to be a carter'; and on village squares one would find a light wine for 'I'll have a toast', 'I'll have a toast' . . . and guitars, stornelli, roses, flowers. Tiny tears to win the applause for the leading actress; or suffer- ings grouped in notes for the outpouring of a .

And Boutet concluded, with heartfelt sympathy for the wronged Sicilian people, that the Sicily of the 'veristi' was only an unrealistic, 'mannered' picture of the true one. Apart from the material inaccuracy concerning the texts of Cavalleria, what could be true for the opera was grossly unfair to Verga. In an open letter published two days later in the same newspaper, it was all too easy for Capuana to refute Boutet's charges by simply stating that the critic had not done his homework if he could credit Verga with the 'melodramatic nonsense' 'Oh, what a lovely job to be a carter'. But when it came to the dramatic reality of the 'Fasci' and the actual condi- tions of the Sicilians, Capuana gave away his own social conservatism by writing that Verga and his like had created works of art 'observing Sicily in a normal condition, in a state of sanity and not of passionate excitement'.18 Moving from opposite ideological premisses, Capuana chose the same wrong approach adopted by Boutet to criticize Verga's works: their connection with contemporary events in Sicily. On the one hand, Capuana historicized Verga's emblematic and heroic verismo, reduc- ing it to the portrayal of Sicilians in a 'normal' and 'sane' state of mind, therefore subservient and respectful of the status quo; on the other hand, he implicitly censured as insane and abnormal the agitation of labourers and mineworkers to

" Boutet's article can be read in Luigi Capuana, Verga e D'Annunzio, ed. Mario Pomilio, Bologna, 1972, pp. 117-20, at p. 119. 's Ibid., p. 124.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms shake off a shameful system of exploitation and political discrimination in the island. The progressive but superficial Boutet could hardly be excused for his blunder at a time when pamphlets, articles and reviews on Mascagni's Cavallerza were being poured out almost as quickly as the opera appeared in theatres all over Europe. The peak period for this frenetic activity was September 1892, during the International Exhibition of Music and Theatre in , where Edoardo Sonzogno presented Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and L'amico Fritz along with other veristic operas issued by his publishing house. Since the gentle idyll derived from Erckmann- Chatrian had come as an anticlimax after the impetuous Cavalleria, the leading Viennese critic, , commented on the importance of the subject in the success of the latter opera: 9

In Cavalleria we were first of all impressed by the extraordinarily happy choice of material. Without doubt this libretto brought out the best in Mascagni and it is of decisive importance in the opera's success. A popular, lively setting, sharply delineated characters, an excellent exposition and heightening of the action, everything well motivated, natural, realistic. And finally the 'heavenly brevity', seeing how everyone has had a bellyful of 4-5 hour operas and Gutzkow's novels in 9 volumes! . .. Mascagni's one- act tragedy surprised and gripped us because it was something quite new. It was not as if the musical ideas were in themselves particularly original, but combined with the shatter- ing events and the passionately involved orchestra they contributed without question to the impression of something new.

The echoes of Mascagni's popularity in Vienna and the enthusiastic comments of the Viennese press inspired, among others, a long essay, 'I1 fenomeno Mascagni', by the theatre critic Arturo Colautti. In a humorous but wordy style, he tried to explain 'this clamorous phenomenon, this living paradox, this humanized absurdity, that makes Germany smile and embarrasses Italy'. He first suggested that it was all due to Verga's play. But he soon added, with a better insight than his colleague Boutet, that the success of Cavalleria was mostly due to the embellishments introduced by the librettists and the composer:20

The part of the operatic Cavalleria which was best liked by the most diverse and remote audiences is precisely that without words . . . There is a good deal more in this unhealthy Cavalleria that refuses the nominal fatherhood of Sig. Verga. It is necessary to quote the 'Siciliana', Lola's song, the double chorus of the introduction, the religious concertato, the drinking song, Turiddu's prayer . . . Well then, the success was mostly determined by these poetical hors d'oeuvre, of which the novelist-playwright claims to be absolutely not guilty.

Consequently, the success of the opera, in Colautti's assessment, was due only in small part to the play. The critic cleared Verga of any responsibility for the

" Eduard Hanslick, 'Freund Fritz', FiinfJahre Musik (1891-1895), Berlin, 1896, pp. 37-46, at pp. 38 & 45. A more markedly negative attitude towards Mascagni's music can be found in Hanslick's review of Tasca's A Santa Lucia: 'I will make no secret of my own personal feeling, namely that the operas of Mascagni make not only a smaller impact on me each time I hear them, but also a more unpleasant one. After a lengthy interval, as is so necessary for correcting our , I heard both Cavalleria and Fritz again on the occasion of Bellincioni's guest appearances and found the paucity of their musical invention almost embarrassing. In Cavalleria this is covered over by the array of physical effects, but the contrast with these massed forces highlights on the other hand the undeservedly famous , which only makes its impact through its flat mellifluousness.' 'A Santa Lucia (1893)', ibid., pp. 85-95, at p. 94. 20 Arturo Colautti, 'Il fenomeno Mascagni', Corriere di Napoli (25-30 September 1892). Colautti was the editor of the Neapolitan daily. He wrote the librettos of (1898) for Giordano and of Adriana Lecouvreur (1902) for Cilea.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms embellishments which had made his story so attractive in the operatic version, and devoted part of his essay to a musical analysis of Cavalleria. He defined Mascagni as an exaggeration of Bizet' and elaborated on the composer's sources:

Without any prejudice of school and bias of nationality, he passes indifferently, through the body of Bizet, from Meyerbeer to Verdi, from Gounod to Ponchielli, from Schumann to Massenet. With a preference for the last one: the young prize-winner has a weakness for the former drum-player of the Opera. Doesn't Cavalleria seem too often a paraphrase of Le Rol de Lahore?

After decrying the limited originality of the music, Colautti could only single out the 'dinamismo musicale' as a decisive factor for the sweeping success of the opera. By that he meant the all too frequent changes of tempo, the restless rhythms, the over- abundant and sharply contrasting dynamics or, in his own words, 'la nevrosi lirica, l'iperemia musicale, il delirium sonans'. The disparaging remarks about Mascagni which spiced Colautti's essay could only be matched by an abusive article by Gabriele D'Annunzio which appeared three weeks earlier on the front page of II mattino, the new Neapolitan daily founded by Edoardo Scarfoglio and Matilde Serao in the spring of 1892. In 'Ii capobanda' Mascagni was defined as 'il velocissimo fabricatore di melodrammi', 'vanaglorioso musicante estemporaneo', 'lesto manipolatore'. The pamphleteer's vitriolic pen did not spare Mascagni's publisher and publicity agent Edoardo Sonzogno, dubbed 'Barnum musicale'. The article, however, was just a show of D'Annunzio's linguistic virtuosity and snobbishness. The only serious point made in it concerned the gigan- tic commercial operation mounted by Sonzogno over the unpredictably successful Cavalleria (e.g. its much publicized presentation at the Vienna Exhibition). Mascagni would always stay out of the realm of pure art, stated D'Annunzio, his unique concern being business, big business. 'A machine for the intensive produc- tion of ', that's what he was, concluded the flamboyant detractor.2' Twenty years later, a member of the Sonzogno family, the young Lorenzo, would mastermind a fruitful collaboration between the poet and the 'bandmaster' which resulted in the 'tragedia lirica' (1913). In 1892 'Il capobanda' outraged the composer's countless admirers all over the country, as is evidenced by the following report from published in the Corriere di Napoli a few days after D'Annun- zio's article:

Ovation for Mascagni Venice, 9 [September 1892]-10.20 pm Tonight, while Cavalleria rusticana was being played in the square, the public recog- nized Mascagni sitting outside a cafe, and warmly acclaimed him. Then the demonstra- tion grew, becoming enthusiastic . .. Surrounded by the crowd, Mascagni shook hands with everybody, thanking them with emotion. All those who were present joined the demonstrators in protest against an article by D'Annunzio, abusive of Mascagni, reported by today's newspapers. The demonstration continued more and more impressively along the streets of the city, accompanying the to his hotel.

Popular enthusiasm versus slashing criticism: with few exceptions, such seems to have been the general response to Mascagni's controversial and divisive Cavalleria in Italy.

21 The article 'Il capobanda'-in II mattino (2-3 September 1892)-can now be read in Rubens Tedeschi, DAn- nunzio e la musica, Florence, 1988, pp. 192-5; my quotation is from p. 195.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms In France, where the Young Italian School could count fewer friends than anywhere else in Europe, the opera caused an uproar on its premiere at the Opera- Comique in 1892.22 A strikingly similar approach to that chosen by Colautti in his essay is noticeable in a review signed by Rene de Recy in the Revue politique et litteraire. The critic attacked the 'melodies qui ont train6 dans nos faubourgs; une platitude pretentieuse et bruyante; des series de modulations oiu l'absence de senti- ment musical se trahit a chaque mesure; la banalite dans la recherche', and pointed out three reasons for the success of the opera: 'le bruit', for which Mascagni was second to none, 'la legende du concours' and Verga's play:23

La troisieme, c'est le drame de Verga, dont la concision tragique se hate vers le but, sans embarrasser sa marche de preparations oiseuses, d'habiles menagements, de complica- tions savantes. Cette Chevalerie rustique, c'est proprement le Point d'honneur villageois: comment ils aiment, comment il trahissent et comment ils se vengent; brusquement, brutalement, a brale-pourpoint ... Tout cela, sans la partition, sans les hors d'oeuvre obligatoires: serenade, priere, scene religieuse, couplets du charretier, choeur de buveurs, -remplirait vingt minutes a peine, et voila qui coupe court aux questions in- discretes ... pour le plus grand profit du musicien.

The French critic did not miss the opportunity to strike indiscriminately at Italian composers: 'Certes, nous n'attendions pas d'Italie une partition delicate, bien ecrite'. A few days later, the Italophile and influential Camille Bellaigue, reviewing Cavalleria for the Revue des deux mondes, admitted that Mascagni's opera had been received 'froidement par le public et tres durement par la critique', and picked at his country's chauvinism:24

On a condamne en bloc la premiere oeuvre d'un ecolier, et remontant de la jusqu'aux chefs d'oeuvre des maitres, c'est l'ecole italienne tout entiere qu'une fois de plus a paru meconnaitre et calomnier. Voila ce qu'il ne faut pas faire.

And Bellaigue quoted the latest masterpiece of his favourite composer, Verdi's , as an example of vitality in the Italian school. He also gave a more objective and analytic evaluation of Cavalleria rusticana. Like Colautti, he pointed out the musical reminiscences (Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Verdi); he criticized , rhythm and instrumentation, and singled out as bad items 'La tres vulgaire chanson du charretier . . . l'oiseuse et banale priere oiu se rencontrent le Massenet du Roi de Lahore et l'Adam du trop fameux Noel . . . l'intermezzo . . . la chanson 'a boire, oui des oreilles francaises ne pouvaient pas ne pas reconnaitre: J'az du bon tabac'. But then Bellaigue illustrated the sparing means by which Mascagni achieved inten- sity of expression and dramatic effectiveness in such pieces as the 'Siciliana' (Je l'aime, cette serenade tragique, pour son parfum populaire, pour la tache de sang qu'elle fait au seuil du drame'), Santuzza's and Lola's stornello ('d'une gen- tille allure toscane'). A special mention was made of the dialogue between Santuzza and Lucia ('Autant de questions, autant de phrases expressives, d'une humilite,

22 A comprehensive survey of the French critical response to the operas of the Young Italian School in the years 1892-1910 can be found in Fiamma Nicolodi, Gusti e tendenze del Novecento musicale in Italia, Florence, 1982, Chapter 1: 'L'opera verista a Parigi: una querelle musicale a confronto', pp. 1-66. The two articles from the Revue politique et litteraiTre quoted here are not mentioned in Nicolodi's study. 23 Rene de Recy, 'Chronique musicale', Revue politique et litt6raire (23 January 1892), 126. Verga's play was already known in France thanks to a production by Andre Antoine on 20 October 1888 at his Theatre Libre, where it failed to make a favourable impression on either critics or audience. 24 Camille Bellaigue, 'Revue musicale', Revue des deux mondes (1 February 1892), 685-8.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms d'une detresse qui attendrit'), and to support his view Bellaigue quoted the authoritative opinion of Hanslick:25

Nous partageons absolument l'avis d'un de nos confreres allemands, et non des plus petits, M. Hanslick, qui ecrivait a propos de Cavalleria: 'Dans tout cet opera on pourrait declarer excellentes les parties de conversation musicale, de dialogue anime, plut6t que les chants ou le chant proprement dit'.

In this way, two of the leading music critics in Europe specifically acknowledged the truly veristic parts of Mascagni's opera, sorting them out from the 'bruit' of the melodrama. In Britain, where Cavalleria arrived in 1891 (London, Shaftesbury Theatre, 19 October, paired with a condensed version of the brothers Ricci's Crispino e la comare), the response was more or less the same: popular enthusiasm checked by the critics' caution. This is what Bernard Shaw wrote after the mild Amico Fritz had partly disappointed Mascagni's fans:26

I was not taken in by Cavalleria; and now that everybody finds L'Amico Fritz obviously deficient in first-rate promise and first-rate accomplishment, I am in the pleasing posi- tion of being able to say, 'I told you so'. Let us therefore clear the discussion of all nonsense about genius of the highest order, and of the ridiculous comparisons with Verdi and Wagner which were rife last year, and give Mascagni fair play as an interesting young composer with a vigorous talent, and plenty of courage in asserting it, con- gratulating ourselves meanwhile on the fact that Bellini has at last found a disciple, albeit one far inferior to his master.

In the early years of the present century, as the critical tide rose against the veristic fashion in opera and Verga's art was eclipsed by new literary trends, Mascagni's Cavalleria was still faring well. A successful revival in Paris in 1905, under the composer's direction, prompted an article in the Revue politique et litteraire, 'Mascagni et la jeune Italie musicale' by Raymond Bouyer. Mascagni was now seen as an innovator and a leader in the Young Italian School. 'Le novateur de Cavalleria rusticana', wrote Bouyer, 'represente le verisme en musique, soit le realisme italien, le naturalisme meridional, inaugure, voici trente ans, par MM. Capuana et Verga.' After , argued the critic, two tendencies had emerged in literature: naturalism and . After Wagner, music was slower to find new ways. Bouyer continued: 'Mais elle se dewagnerzse a son tour: elle se par- tage entre le Debussysme et le Mascagnisme'. With ease and little sense of propor- tion, Bouyer juxtaposed 'le novateur de Pelleas et Melisande' to 'le novateur de Cavalleria rusticana':27

Debussy, n'est-ce-pas l'extreme reve, ultima Thule? le mystere quasi muet des nuits sans etoiles ou l'etrange murmure des jours neigeux? L'equivalent musical des nocturnes ebauches par James Whistler? . . . Mascagni, c'est le jour criard, la lumiere crue, sans demiteintes; c'est la vie latine qui reprend conscience en face de la feerie germanique, le document qui veut reagir contre le symbole, le Midi qui lutte sourdement contre le Nord, sous couleur de continuer ses innovations.

25 Ibid. Bellaigue quoted from Hanslick's first review of the opera: 'Sicilianische Bauernehre (Cavalleria rusticana) von Pietro Mascagni. 1891', Aus dem Tagebuche eines Musikers, Berlin, 1892, pp. 171-80, at p. 176. 26 Bernard Shaw, Music in London 1890-94, ii (reprinted London, 1949), 101. Shaw reviewed the British premiere of Cavalleria in these terms: '. . . it is a youthfully vigorous piece of work with abundant snatches of melody broken obstreperously off on one dramatic pretext or another. But, lively and promising as it is, it is not a whit more so than the freshest achievements of Mr Hamish MacCunn and Mr Cliffe.' Ibid., i. 264. 27 Raymond Bouyer, 'Mascagni et la jeune Italie musicale', Revue politique et litteraire (28 January 1905), 125.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Bouyer's pictorial and atmospheric definition mainly concerned the subject of Cavalleria; Verga's 'etude dramatique' was appreciated for its conciseness, healthy sensualism and picturesqueness ('Le decor, voila ce qui rehausse a propos ce drame rustique de la jalousie, que le verisme italien drape dans les plis d'or du soleil natal'). As to the music, we find again the usual charges ('De la facilite, de l'entrein, du bruit, beaucoup de reminiscences, des choeurs, des airs, adroitement travestis sous la trame ininterrompue de l'action hative'), and the indiscriminate denigration of 'la jeune Italie musicale', which, according to Bouyer, was influenced by 'le Mascagnisme': 'les Vies de Boheme parallees des Leoncavallo et des Puccini, le Paillasse de l'un, de l'autre, ouvrages haletants et superficiels . . . sans avenir et sans art'. Not surprisingly, Bouyer concluded that 'la tranche de vie ne nous suffit plus', and played off Mascagni against D'Annunzio, whose fame had crossed the and found favourable ground in France:28

Diversement latins, Pietro Mascagni et Gabriele D'Annunzio peignent tous deux la Vie sans bannir le pastiche; mais la nouvelle France artiste preferera toujours celui-ci .. Mascagni apparait plus populaire et plus simple; mais il ne suggere pas cette subtilite dans la sensualite, cette distinction dans la passion; son ideal borne ne promet point ces caresses de voluptueux egofsme ou de beaute fatale; sa muse plus honnete ignore ces perversites de sirene.

Five years later, a young Italian musicologist, Giannotto Bastianelli, published the first comprehensive study of Mascagni and his works.29 Like Bouyer, he insisted on the popular nature of Cavalleria, which had brought some fresh air into the stuffy repertory of Italian opera. Like Bellaigue and Hanslick before him, he praised Mascagni's or 'free song', as he called it (particularly the dialogue between Santuzza and Lucia in Scene 2), suggesting as its precedent the last duet in Carmen. The 'plebeian', naive of Mascagni's music, its exuberance and straightforwardness, were the best assets of Cavalleria. There was no theory or for- mal research behind it; yet this instinctive, genuine work could inject new 'musical sap into the age-old tree of '. What about verismo? Bastianelli noted that Cavalleria belonged to verismo more by virtue of the libretto than for an intrinsic quality of the music. It was a belated product of that literary movement 'just as Boito's was an extreme product of romanticism'. Bastianelli concluded: 30

But even admitting, as I willingly do, the fresh spontaneity of this opera. .. our mind ... soon finds that that freshness borders on childishness and foolhardiness, and that spon- taneity has the blind limit of futility . .. In Cavallerza we do not feel an ineluctably new urge, which becomes aware of itself and, as such, may have the right to be called a new artistic knowledge, a really new . Cavalleria has on us the same effect that is provoked by all belated and off-season flowerings in history. It soon bores, or rather it soon generates an oblivious smile instead of a new aesthetic feeling.

Bastianelli's critical stance should be seen in the context of a new trend in Italian in the early twentieth century, a trend which pursued a systematic devaluation of the entire Italian operatic production along with a reappraisal of vocal and instrumental music from earlier ages. In Bastianelli's view, the genuinely popular character of Mascagni's music, 'his beautiful italianita', ranged him with

28 Ibid., p. 127. 29 Giannotto Bastianelli, Pietro Mascagni, Naples, 1910. " Ibid., pp. 56-57.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms greater composers like Rossini and Verdi as they all personified the 'new intellec- tual mediocrity' of modern Italy. In this respect, Mascagni, more than the 'Frenchi- fied' Puccini, might well be considered a 'direct continuer of Verdi and Rossini'.3" Bastianelli's study was one of a series dedicated to 'Contemporanei d'Italia' and was promoted by Giuseppe Prezzolini, the founder and editor of the Florentine journal La voce. In 1911, from the pages of that periodical, Ildebrando Pizzetti fired a broadside on the same target - opera and verismo - and, like Bastianelli, insisted on the alleged intellectual mediocrity of late nineteenth-century which was mirrored in the operas of the Young School:32

Certainly, neither Verdi with Otello, nor Mascagni with his three operas [Cavalleria rusticana, L'amico Fritz, ], nor Franchetti, nor the French had shown signs of a new-really new--conception of the musical drama, substantially different from the general conception of romantic opera composers. But all those composers had tried in some way to get out of the narrow circle of the melodramma where one could only breathe mouldy and stale air. Verdi - led by Boito -had made his way towards the inex- haustible Shakespearian source of life; the others (except for Franchetti) had turned to vulgar subjects, to the so-called veristic subjects . . . In conclusion, around 1890 . . . Italian theatre music by no means became more deeply expressive than before, nor did it acquire new important contents, but it became more sincere. For many years the Italian collective character had already had a bourgeois spirit with mediocre artistic aspirations, the dominant was for an art with mediocre contents and modest aims . . . The operas of Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Puccini did not really generate a new veristic art, nor an art which expressed the deepest spiritual life of the Italian people, but the petit bourgeois art which was needed for the Italian theatre-goers who in a way had inspired it.

More or less at the same time as Bastianelli's and Pizzetti's scathing remarks, , in his famous pamphlet on Puccini, took a similar view of Cavalleria and verismo. It is interesting to note how frequently the adjective 'mediocre' recurs in such attacks:33

Such a mediocre musical world as that of the purely operatic composer, narrow, small, confined to the commonplaces of art and to the petty devices of the artistic trade, cannot attempt to bring to life a great and intense poetic world . . . The verismo inaugurated by Cavalleria has no other significance than this instinctive acknowledgement of the spiritual poverty of Italian operatic music at that time, ai la Ponchielli.

It is not until 1932, with Mario Rinaldi's Musica e verzsmo, that a more sym- pathetic view can be found with regard to individual composers and verismo as a tendency in Italian opera. Rinaldi concedes that 'a modest as well as necessary con- tribution' was made by veristic opera, and then points to Verdi's last two works as examples of a 'correct' employment of verismo (but we should avoid such an abused term, particularly in connection with Verdi, and say 'naturalistic style', which is what Rinaldi actually meant): 'One could remember that Verdi, too, in Otello and Falstaff, set the rules for the correct use of verismo in music . . . closed the romantic period showing, in fact, what place verismo should occupy both in the musical drama and in the lyrical '.34 Rinaldi did know Verdi's own views on literary verismo. The Copialettere had been published some twenty years

31 Ibid., p. 7. 32 Ildebrando Pizzetti, 'Giacomo Puccini', La voce, iii (2 February 1911), 497-9. It was the first of three articles on Puccini. The other two were published in the issues dated 9 February, pp. 502-3, and 16 February, pp. 508-9. 3 Fausto Torrefranca, Giacomo Puccinz e l'opera internazionale, Turin, 1912, p. 8. 3 Mario Rinaldi, Musica e verismo, Rome, 1932, p. 337.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms before his study. A well-known letter should be remembered here. Writing to about the revision of Boccanegra, on 20 November 1880, Verdi launched into a digression on verismo:35

Ah, progress, science, verzsmo . . . ! Ahi, ahi! Verista as long as you wish, but . . . Shakespeare was a verista, but he did not know that. He was a verista by inspiration; we are veristi by project, with premeditation . . . An art which lacks spontaneity, naturalness, simplicity, is no longer art.

In his characteristic way, Verdi took a conservative stance whenever something seemed to challenge tradition or orthodoxy, save that the next moment he would be pursuing innovation in his own way. He must have had Verga in mind. The collec- tion of stories Vita dei campi had appeared in the summer of 1880 in Milan and been enthusiastically reviewed by Capuana in the Corriere della sera (20-21 September 1880), only two months before Verdi wrote his letter to Ricordi.36 In Italy, the critical reappraisal of operatic verismo witnessed a fresh start in the 1960s (a decade of anniversaries: Mascagni, born in 1863; Giordano, born in 1867).37 In 1985, city council promoted the 'First International Conference on Pietro Mascagni' (Town Hall, 13-14 April). One paper, by Luigi Baldacci, was on Mascagni's librettos. Discussing Cavallerza, Baldacci concluded with a clear-cut distinction between Verga's play and Mascagni's opera:38

In the Cavalleria of Targioni-Tozzetti and Menasci, Verga's expressive key is completely lost. Of the ambience, the colour, the outline with its little figures from whom the drama will gradually emerge - in other words Verga's choral character -nothing remains in the libretto of Cavalleria. It is built in the old fashion, entirely on the characters; there are the choruses, not the choral character ... The linguistic substance of Verga's Cavalleria, the dialectal animus, have disappeared.

Verga's austure and pessimistic art had never been popular, and his best-selling stories had often been appreciated for the wrong reasons, as was the case with 'Cavalleria rusticana'. The tremendous popularity of the opera added a further bias against a correct understanding of Verga's works. The awareness of that was a source of resentment for the novelist in his last years. After Verga's death (on 27 January 1922), in a commemorative article published in Nuova antologia Francesco Paolo Mule recalled a visit he had paid him in some ten years earlier, and quoted a bitter outburst from the novelist about 'Cavalleria':39

Once, as I asked him what he was working on . . . he frowned and burst out, un- characteristically, with these words: -Whom should I write for? Of what I have written

3 I copi'alettere di Gz'useppe Verdi, ed. Gaetano Cesari & Alessandro Luzio, Milan, 1913, p. 559. See also Charles Osborne, The Letters of Verdi, London, 1971, p. 212. In the first draft of this passage Verdi used a stronger expression about verismo: 'Ah il verismo! E la piaga dell'epoca nostra!' . . It is the scourge of our time!'): see Carteggio Verdi-Ricordi 1880-1881, ed. Pierluigi Petrobelli, Marisa Di Gregorio Casati & Carlo Matteo Mossa, Parma, 1988, p. 73. 36 Verga was a well-known figure in the cultural circles of Milan, where he lived from 1872 to 1887. He had access to the prestigious salon of , Verdi's lifelong friend. " Two bulky volumes were published: Pietro Mascagni, ed. Mario Morini, Milan, 1964; and Umberto Gior- dano, ed. idem, Milan, 1968. The quarterly journal L'opera dedicated its issue dated January-March 1966 to Iverismo musicale'. The following year, a major exhibition was mounted at the Museo Teatrale alla Scala on the theme 'Problemi del verismo nell'opera in musica' (2 December 1967-7 January 1968). 3 Luigi Baldacci, 'I libretti di Mascagni', Atti del I convegno internazionale distudisu Pietro Mascagni, Milan, 1987, p. 81. Baldacci's contribution was first published as an article in Nuova rivista musicale Italiana, xix (1985), 395-410. 9 Francesco Paolo Mule, 'Giovanni Verga', Nuova antologia (1 April 1922), 235.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms only Cavalleria rusticana survives, through no merit of mine, but of Pietro Mascagni. I keep those few pages like a noose round my neck. -Bitterness, but dignified, resigned, indulgent.

In 1894 the critic Eduardo Boutet had no justification for confusing the libretto of Cavallerza with the text of the play. How much more remarkable that this should happen, as late as 1928, to so experienced a writer as D. H. Lawrence! Whether it was complete ignorance of the opera or the fact that he took for granted what others had simply assumed as probable, Lawrence concluded the introduction to his own translation of Cavalleria rusticana and Other Stories with this statement:40

Everybody knows, of course, that Verga made a dramatized version of Cavalleria rusticana, and that this dramatized version is the libretto of the ever-popular little opera of the same name. So that Mascagni's rather feeble [sic!] music has gone to immortalize a man like Verga, whose only popular claim to fame is that he wrote the aforesaid libretto. But that is fame's fault, not Verga's.

Although Verga's 'popularity' was still to come, his claim to fame had been vin- dicated by Luigi Russo with a fundamental study.4' As a translator of Vita dei campi and Mastro-Don Gesualdo, Lawrence might have been at least more cautious in accepting such an arbitrary attribution. Generalizations and inaccurate evaluations can still be found in the 1960s. Writing in 1963, John W. Klein claimed that, in the relationship between Verga and Mascagni, the initial positions were, in the end, completely reversed, 'for veneration on Mascagni's part was gradually turned into open hostility and even contempt, whereas Verga's initial sympathy tinged with condescension for an "obscure" musician becomes outraged dignity and, finally, subsides into something closely akin to humility and even gratitude'.42 At the end of his article, Klein mis- quoted Mule's recollection of his meeting with Verga (see above) and concluded:43

Verga was beginning to recognize that his strange relationship with Mascagni had been, after all, the one supreme stroke of good luck in a somewhat harassed exist- ence . . an almost ideal partnership that had benefited both men beyond their wildest expectations .

On the contrary, the 'partnership', far from being 'ideal', did in fact damage both men: after his first great success, Mascagni remained for ever a one-opera composer, though some of his later works (, ) would testify to a richer and finer personality; Verga was unwittingly dragged into the controversy about operatic verismo and often blamed for 'faults'-sensationalism, excess, picturesqueness -of which he was innocent. One wonders whether a collaboration between Verga and Mascagni might have challenged the survival of the long-established convention of a versified libretto in Italian opera. Librettos in prose were indeed one of the characteristics of the naturalistic movement in as it was brought about by the 'partnership' between Zola and Alfred Bruneau.

41 D. H. Lawrence, Selected Literary Criticism, ed. Anthony Beal, London, 1982, p. 291. A similar error can be found in a preface to Mastro-Don Gesualdo: 'He is, as far as anybody knows his name, just the man who wrote the libretto to Cavalleria rusticana. Whereas, as a matter of fact, Verga's story Cavalleria rusticana is as much superior to Mascagni's rather cheap music as wine is superior to sugar-water. Verga is one of the greatest masters of the short story.' Ibid., p. 271. 4' Luigi Russo, Giovanni Verga, Naples, 1919. 42 John W. Klein, 'Pietro Mascagni and Giovanni Verga', Music & Letters, xliv (1963), 350. 4 Ibid., p. 357.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms In his old age, Mascagni came to consider his youthful association with Verga as yet another source of bitterness and grudges. Snubbed by Italy's younger composers, entrenched in reactionary positions about opera and music in general, he found little reason for rejoicing on the 50th anniversary of his most successful opera. An article he wrote for Nuova antologia in 1940 is full of nostalgic reminiscences and acrimonious comments on artistic directors (for not including his operas in their season's programmes), malevolent critics and even film reviewers. In 1939 a film was made from Verga's 'Cavalleria' for which the producers (the Scalera brothers) asked Mascagni to authorize the use of his music. The composer firmly refused 'for per- sonal and deeply felt reasons'; but then he complained about the Neapolitan newspaper II mattino, which claimed, as Mascagni put it in his article, that 'the pro- ducers' greatest merit consists in not having wanted the music of Cavalleria, which would have contaminated the beautiful film'.44 The Mattino review quoted by Mascagni included enthusiastic comments on Verga's story and the film (featuring first-rate artists: Isa Poli, Leonardo Cortese, Carlo Ninchi) and welcomed the use of 'splendid popular music' as befitting the original character of Verga's work better than 'worn-out melodramatic formulas'.45 Fifty years after the anniversary performances of Cavalleria conducted by Mascagni in Rome (Teatro dell'Opera, 5 March 1940), Milan (, 12 April 1940) and elsewhere, this controversial composer has received some critical and un- biased attention from non-Italian musicologists. Verga's position in the intricate question of the connections between literary verismo and opera has also been recon- sidered. Jay Nicolaisen, for example, discussing the various meanings attributed to verismo, writes: 'For Grout and Carner veristic opera must be shocking-a quality hardly central to Verga's style'.46 And Carl Dahlhaus, in one of the most stimulating studies on the subject, states:

Although the archetype of veristic opera, Cavalleria rusticana, uses a libretto based on an incontestably veristic play by Giovanni Verga ... the number of criteria of naturalistic style which the opera still observes is remarkably small. (The one realist feature which is undiminished in verismo opera is the rebellion implied by the 'shocking' choice of 'low- class', previously neglected areas of subject matter.)47 In conclusion, the advent of in the musical theatre is best understood as the development of new musico-dramatic techniques and a new vocal style which marked a radical departure from the stylization of nineteenth-century Italian opera. The choice of subjects derived from contemporary literature dealing with low-life stories does not in itself make one opera more realistic than another. Nor can an opera be identified as 'veristic' because it exhibits excess and sensationalism. Such characteristics are in fact totally contrary to the aesthetics of verismo in its genuine literary form; they belong to a minor genre which originated from Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and can at best -- if habit insists - be called 'operatic verismo'. This genre slowly petered out in the early years of our century as new cultural trends influenced the evolution of opera: symbolism, exoticism, expressionism etc. The in- fluence of literary verismo manifested itself in pithiness of dialogue, a more realistic

" Pietro Mascagni, 'II cinquantenario della Cavalleria rusticana in musica', Nuova antologia (I6January 1940), 108. 4 'Cavalleria rusticana', Il mattino (2 November 1939). 46 Jay Nicolaisen, Italien Opera in Transition, 1871-1893, Ann Arbor, 1980, p. 245. 4 Carl Dahlhaus, Realism in Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. Mary Whittall, Cambridge, 1985, p. 69.

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This content downloaded from 129.105.215.146 on Mon, 02 Jul 2018 17:49:54 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms language often enriched by vernacular interpolations, simple and fast-moving stage actions; it gave new relevance to the social background in dramatic characterization and put emphasis on the importance of acting skills along with good singing in per- formance. Not all of this was channelled through Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana; but it was. instrumental in alerting composers, librettists, publishers and critics to the possibility of different thematic and stylistic dimensions in opera.

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