The first performance of I Rantzau took place at the Pergola Theatre in Florence on 10th November 1892. It was a triumphal success right from the dress rehearsal; the ovations for the composer were so great that according to the reports of the time his wife Lina fainted with emotion. On the first evening, six pieces were encored. Born under such splending auspices, the opera continued its career almost into the new century, but inexplicably, in its complete version, it was no longer put forward for production. And we had to wait until the celebration of the centenary of the first performance for the first new production in modern times. What was the reason for its disappearance? Whatever answers might be given, today I Rantzau has to be considered an important and delicate stage in Mascagni’s creative work. Indeed, the opera marks the saturation of the so-called “realistic” phase of the composer’s work. It highlights the consolidation of the change from the idyllic naturalism tried out in the earlier Amico Fritz, to a true experimentalism which was to lead soon after that to the pessimistic tensions of the heavy Nordic romanticism of Guglielmo Ratcliff.

One would be hard pressed to find an opera more proudly Southern Italian than Cavalleria rusticana, set in Vizzini, a small mountain village in the Sicilian hinterland that was the birthplace of the story’s playwright, Giovanni Verga. Its enduring popularity makes it surprising indeed that the last studio recording dates to exactly 30 years ago (1990, Semyon Bychkov), preceded just a year earlier by Giuseppe Sinopoli’s critically acclaimed production dedicated to his father, who, like its protagonists and Verga, was Sicilian. This new interpretation is thus long overdue and joins a small but prestigious circle of recordings, with Carmine Gallone (1953, film), Tullio Serafin (1960), Herbert von Karajan (1965), James Levine (1978), Franco Zeffirelli (1982, film) and Georges Pretre (1983) predating Sinopoli. This new production of Cavalleria Rusticana brings together some of the most prominent artists on today’s international opera stages under conductor Filippo Arlia, a native of South Italy’s Calabria and youngest-ever Director of an Italian conservatory (Nocera Terinese’s ‘Tchaikovsky’ Conservatory). The recording’s soloists are no less impressive: tenor Piero Giuliacci (Turiddu, winner of the ‘Mascagni d’Oro’ 2013 and ‘Pavarotti d’Oro’ 2017); mezzo-soprano Alessandra Di Giorgio (Santuzza); baritone Domenico Balzani (Alfio); mezzo-soprano Irina Dolzhenko (Lucia); and soprano Giorgia Teodoro (Lola) who, like Arlia, calls Calabria home. This recording revives Mascagni’s voice in a new millennium with artists capable of honouring the verismo vocal color he pioneered, before an entire generation of opera composers followed suit.

Lodoletta was once part of the usual repertoire; nowadays we can consider this work one of the most interesting creations of Mascagni last style: a Mascagni who partly recycles the atmosphere of the youthful Fritz, but seems to approach also a type of musical dramaturgy reserved to an exploration of the female soul, similar to that of the colleague-friend-rival Puccini. Mascagni's source is the pathetic tale of the novel Two Little Wooden Shoes by the British writer Ouida: the naive protagonist, the Brabant flower girl Bebée hurt in love by the cynical painter Victor Flammen, let's herself be drowned in the placid waters of the lake near her father's house. She is the prototype of the woman victim of the egoism and emptiness of the male, dear to Puccini. Mascagni's approach is quite different: being an authentic realist and an outspoken "popular musician", he focuses on the passion of lacerating love, making Lodoletta a true tragic character, who, instead of killing herself like a "floral" doll, leaves on foot from Holland - the librettist new setting -for the painter's Parisian home, then she dies of starvation in the snow on his doorstep, invoking his name and his love. It is a highly dramatic and mercilessly realistic finale, eloquent embodiment of that "erotic sadness" that a shrewd critic like Giannotto Bastianelli had rightly recognized as the essential poetic core of Mascagni's theater, which through the dry modernity of the musical writing redeems the excessive sentimentalism of the previous acts.

Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945) was one of those composers famous for a single work, the remainder of their oeuvre being practically unknown. His opera Iris is based on the libretto by Luigi Illica, who also wrote the libretti for Puccini operas such as La Bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. It was Illica who gave birth to the idea of an opera about Japan. Exotic subjects, i.e. those set in distant lands, were in vogue throughout Europe, and the Far East in particular was very present at the time. It was Mascagni’s express wish to write ‘original’ music to this specific material, something hitherto unheard-of. This recording with the choir and orchestra of the Berliner Operngruppe under Felix Krieger is a live recording of the Berlin premiere of the original version from the Konzerthaus Berlin. The Berliner Operngruppe celebrated its 10th anniversary.

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Mascagni’s first and most successful work has become an opera classic as it features elements of the Greek tragedy, mixing up religious and archaic elements. It’s a story of love, passion, jealousy and restored honor in bloodshed. Directors Di Gangi and Giacomazzi set this traditional Cavalleria in a Sicilian village of the 1940s where the buildings are rather bare and the piazza is the stage for private as well as public drama. Conductor Valerio Galli is at the head of the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, one of the best in Italy. Good performance reviews for the whole cast. “The star of the show is Angelo Villari, who plays an impeccable Turiddu. Thanks to his warm and fiery voice, the Italian tenor adds credibility to a complex character, torn between passion and sensitivity… Soprano Alexia Voulgaridou portrays a perfect, melancholic Santuzza. She possesses an excellent vocal instrument and her voice is lyrical, dramatic and emotionally engaging … Marina Ogii is a Lola imbued with charm and sensuality, with a warm and cleverly projected voice … Elena Zilio is a well-centered and engaging Mamma Lucia, with a magnetic stage presence and an incredible expressive talent… Lorenzo Fratini is at the head of the chorus which provides excellent and powerful contributions to the performance.” (connessiallopera.it)