The Teatro Costanzi in Rome was no more than half full on the evening of Saturday 17 May 1890 for the first performance of a new opera by an unknown 26-year-old composer. Pietro Mascagni – who was currently working as a local musician in the small town of Cerignola in south-eastern Italy – was one of three obscure figures who had made it through to the final round of a competition for a one-act opera organised by the publishing firm of Sonzogno. 

Word from the jury-room was positive, but the important verdict would be that of the public. In the event, the reaction of the Roman audience to Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana exceeded anyone’s wildest dreams – Mascagni’s included. ‘You cannot even have the barest idea of what happened in the hall of the Costanzi on that unforgettable evening’, Gemma Bellincioni – the opera’s first Santuzza – wrote afterwards.