mance, and there is in it
a promise of greater things.

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA[A]

(Rustic Chivalry)

CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA

Santuzza.
Lola.
Turiddu.
Alfio.
Lucia.

Peasants.

The story is of peasant people in a small Sicilian village, on an
Easter day.

Composer: Pietro Mascagni.
Authors: Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci.

First sung at Rome, May 20, 1890.

[Footnote A: The quotations from "Cavalleria Rusticana" are from the
English version by Nathan Haskell Dole, Copyright, 1891, by G.
Schirmer.]

ACT I

One fine Easter morning, in a small Italian village, a fop, named
Turiddu, came along the little street singing of Lola, an old
sweetheart, who, since Turiddu went to serve his required term in the
army, had married a wagoner. Turiddu was far from heartbroken,
because when he returned and first heard of Lola's faithlessness, he
straightway fell in love with a worthier girl--Santuzza. Neither Lola
nor Turiddu was a faithful sort, but lived for a good time to-day,
leaving luck to look after to-morrow; but it was not the same with
Santuzza. She truly loved Turiddu, and being an Italian peasant, very
emotional and excitable, it was going to be dangerous for Turiddu to
ill-treat her.

If that Easter morning found Turiddu quite gay and free, it found
Santuzza full of despair and misgiving, because she knew that her
lover had returned to his former sweetheart. Lola's husband, the
wagoner, was frequently away from his home, and in his absence his
wife had been flirting. In a little village, where everybody knew
everybody else, and all of each other's business, Santuzza's
companions had learned that Turiddu had thrown his new love over for
the old, and instead of pitying her, they had ridiculed and treated
her unkindly.

On a Sunday morning, just before the villagers started to church,
Santuzza started for Turiddu's home. He lived near the church, with
Lucia, his old mother. Santuzza had been thinking all night of what
she could do to win her lover back; and at daylight had risen with the
determination to go to old Lucia, and tell her how her son had
misbehaved. In Italy, even grown sons and daughters obey their parents
more promptly than the small children in America ever do. Santuzza,
all tears and worn with sleeplessness, thought possibly Lucia could
prevail upon Turiddu to keep his word and behave more like an honest
man. All the little village was astir early, because Easter is a f