O P E R A S E L E C T I O N
by Italian Opera Taormina
Cavalleria Rusticana
an Opera by Pietro Mascagni
Gardens of the Teatro Nazarena of Taormina on Sunday 13 July 2025 @9:15pm
An exclusive format with a selection of the most famous opera arias, performed by internationally acclaimed artists and accompanied by the piano.
Set in a Sicilian village and based on a short story by the Sicilian Giovanni Verga, Cavalleria Rusticana is a passionate tale of love, jealousy, and honor—one of the most powerful works of the Italian opera repertoire.
This special performance will feature professional opera singers in full costume, accompanied live on piano, offering a popwerful and intimate interpretation of one of the most passionate works in the italian operatic tradition.
Cast:
Carmen Salamone – Santuzza
Graziano D’Urso – Alfio
Moisès Molin – Turiddu
Sabrina Messina – Lola
Maria Motta– Mamma Lucia
Antonio Gennaro- pianist
Silvia Di Falco- art director
TICKETS
Ask your Hotel or click HERE
🥂 €50 – includes a drink during the intermission | Entry at 8:45 PM, unassigned seating
👶 Free entry for children up to 6 years old
MORE INFO
Italian Opera Taormina > www.italianoperataormina.com – Phone:+39 340 642 62 30 – info@italianoperataormina.com
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from an 1880 short story of the same name and subsequent play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.
Composition history
In July 1888 the Milanese music publisher Edoardo Sonzogno announced a competition open to all young Italian composers who had not yet had an opera performed on stage. They were invited to submit a one-act opera which would be judged by a jury of five prominent Italian critics and composers. The best three would be staged in Rome at Sonzogno’s expense.
Mascagni heard about the competition only two months before the closing date and asked his friend Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, a poet and professor of literature at the Italian Royal Naval Academy in Livorno, to provide a libretto. Targioni-Tozzetti chose Cavalleria rusticana, a popular short story (and play) by Giovanni Verga, as the basis for the opera. He and his colleague Guido Menasci set about composing the libretto, sending it to Mascagni in fragments, sometimes only a few verses at a time on the back of a postcard. As Mascagni believed that the work was hastily written and not reflective of his best efforts, his courage deserted him and he placed the draft in a drawer, from where his wife, Argenide Marcellina “Lina” Mascagni, removed it and submitted it on the last day that entries would be accepted.
In all, 73 operas were submitted, and on 5 March 1890, the judges selected the final three: Niccola Spinelli’s Labilia, Vincenzo Ferroni [it]’s Rudello, and Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana.
WHERE TO STAY
Hotel La Pensione Svizzera – Hotel Villa Schuler – Hotel Villa Ducale – Hotel Villa Carlotta
