See Also
Il Tirreno Obituary
Musical America Obituary
Printable Version

Cavalleria's Crown

This obituary was published in Time Magazine a little over a week after Mascagni's passing. It is hard to imagine a more misinformed piece, which borders on hatred for the composer and his pre- and post-Cavalleria achievements.

The article was written at a difficult time, and the focus of the author on Fascism may be understandable, but it is extremely reductive. Mascagni's relationship with the Fascist regime is today better understood, thanks in particular to Alan Mallach's biography, which makes it clear that Mascagni was no Fascist activist, and that his support for the regime was mostly ornamental.

This article is published here to illustrate the extremes that Mascagni's critics have too often reached. The footnotes are Mascagni.org's.

Pietro Mascagni had one flash of genius. He was 26, a penniless ex-conductor of a fourth-rate itinerant Italian opera ¹ company, when he heard of a prize contest for a new one-act opera. In eight feverish days and nights he wrote Cavalleria Rusticana, a fast-moving, lyric tale of love and murder in a Sicilian square at Eastertide. It won the prize, got its composer 40 curtain calls at its first performance in May 1890, and subsequently the Order of the Crown of Italy. In Manhattan, Oscar Hammerstein produced Cavalleria in English, and the Metropolitan Opera did it in Italian; both were hits. Critics hailed a new Verdi.

Stocky Pietro Mascagni tried 14 times to repeat his success. (Shrewish Signora Mascagni, a peasant girl wrapped in furs on the profits of Cavalleria, jealously selected the casts of all 15 ²). But the audiences that cheered and wept over Cavalleria booed and hissed its pedantic successors ³.

Tribute & Applause. The Fascists did their best to make a great musician of Pietro Mascagni, and he cooperated ⁴. In 1926, he was appointed Arturo Toscanini's successor as director of Milan's La Scala ⁵. He obliged by composing a Hymn of Labor ⁶. The obedient Fascist press hailed his 1935 opera Nero, a musical tribute to Mussolini's Italy ⁷, but it flopped anyway.

U.S. audiences, continuing to applaud the 55-year-old Cavalleria (which has had more than 250 performances at the Met), disregarded the composer's Fascist foolishness. Many had even forgotten that he still lived, that he and Richard Strauss were the only living men among the composers in the Met's 1944-45 season.

Last week, in a Rome hotel room, Cavalleria's Mascagni, 81, died. He had phrased his own epitaph after one of his failures: "It is a pity I did write Cavalleria first. I was crowned before I became King." ⁸

1. Mascagni was at the time actually traveling with operetta companies
2. There is clear evidence that this was not the case
3. Many of Mascagni's following operas actually enjoyed great success during Mascagni's lifetime
4. At the time Fascism rose in Italy, Mascagni had already composed all his major works, with the exception of Nerone. It is however true that Mascagni was supported, although without much enthusiasm, by the Fascist regime.
5. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that this was the case. This appears to be a myth.
6. There is no evidence that the composition of his Canto del Lavoro was related to an appointment as director of La Scala.
7. This argument has been made often, but nothing supports it. Mascagni had contemplated the idea of writing a Nerone back in the 1880's, about forty years before the premiere of the opera. The character of Nero portrayed in Nerone is anything but flattering.
8. This is a famous quote, but there is no evidence that Mascagni ever pronounced it. It is most likely a myth.