nted
director of the Liceo Musicale Rossini.

As director of the music-school in Rossini's native town Mascagni's
days were full of trouble from the outset. He was opposed, said his
friends, in reformatory efforts by some of the professors and pupils,
whose enmity grew so virulent that in 1897 they spread the story that
he had killed himself. He was deposed from his position by the
administration, but reinstated by the Minister of Fine Arts. The
criticism followed him for years that he had neglected his duties to
travel about Europe, giving concerts and conducting his operas for the
greater glory of himself and the profit of his publisher. At the time
of the suicide story it was also said that he was in financial straits;
to which his friends replied that he received a salary of 60 lire ($12)
a day as director, 1000 lire ($200) a month from Sonzogno, and lived in
a princely dwelling.

After "Zanetto" came "Iris," to which, as the one opera besides
"Cavalleria rusticana" which has remained in the American repertory, I
shall devote the next chapter in this book. "Iris" was followed by "Le
Maschere," which was brought out on January 17, 1901, simultaneously in
six cities--Rome, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Turin, and Naples. It made an
immediate failure in all of these places except Rome, where it endured
but a short time. Mascagni's next operatic work was a lyric drama,
entitled "Vistilia," the libretto of which, based upon an historical
novel by Racco de Zerbi, was written by Menasci and Targioni-Tozzetti,
who collaborated on the book of "Cavalleria rusticana." The action goes
back to the time of Tiberius and deals with the loves of Vistilia and
Helius. Then came another failure in the shape of "Amica," which lived
out its life in Monte Carlo, where it was produced in March, 1905.

In the winter of 1902-1903 Signor Mascagni was in the United States for
the purpose of conducting performances of some of his operas and giving
concerts. The company of singers and instrumentalists which his
American agents had assembled for his purpose was, with a few
exceptions, composed of the usual operatic flotsam and jetsam which can
be picked up at any time in New York. The enterprise began in failure
and ended in scandal. There had been no adequate preparation for the
operas announced, and one of them was not attempted.

This was "Ratcliff." "Cavalleria rusticana," "Zanetto," and "Iris" were
poorly performed at the Metropolitan Opera Hous