Pietro Mascagni’s 1890 Opera "Cavalleria rusticana": A Critical Edition with Commentary and Historical Introduction

FAIN: FEL-281206-22

Andreas Giger
Louisiana State University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001)

Preparation for publication of a critical edition of Pietro Mascagni’s Italian opera Cavalleria rusticana (1890), with historical introduction and commentary.

Cavalleria rusticana, an iconic Italian opera that launched operatic verismo, exists only in corrupt editions. In performance, these editions have prevented the exploration of the opera's full musical and dramatic potential; and in scholarship, they have led to unresolved questions about the work's dramatic conception. This project will produce the opera's first critical edition. Following the most advanced principles and methods, it will make Cavalleria rusticana available not only in its final version but also its original version, which restores in an appendix the last-minute cuts (amounting to over 13% of the score) and allows for the return to the original keys. The original version recovers music never heard in public and a tonal conception more coherent than that of the final version. Finally, the edition resolves longstanding editorial problems, not least those pertaining to an accurate and consistent Sicilian dialect in the opening number.

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The Unknown Music of Mascagni’s _Cavalleria rusticana_ (Article)
Title: The Unknown Music of Mascagni’s _Cavalleria rusticana_
Author: Andreas Giger
Abstract: Shortly before the premiere of _Cavalleria rusticana_, Pietro Mascagni cut 246 measures from his opera. This substantial section of music has remained largely unknown and has never been examined. The reason lies in an ostensible lack of sources that might have shed light on these cuts. Recent access to the original prompter’s score, the score once in the possession of the first conductor (Leopoldo Mugnone), autograph letters, unexplored reviews, and a rediscovered staging manual have made a thorough evaluation of the cuts possible. These cuts fall into three categories: (1) those tightening the pace, (2) those reducing the taxing part of the chorus, and (3) those accommodating transpositions requested at the last minute by the star singers Gemma Bellincioni (Santuzza) and Roberto Stagno (Turiddu). The article argues that the cuts had consequences beyond their originally intended function, affecting the staging, drama, and formal conception. In the “Introduzione,” for instance, they led to confusion about the way in which the scene should be staged; in the “Sortita di Alfio,” they eliminate music that functioned as the culmination of the aria’s large-scale formal plan; and in the composite No. 5, they exaggerate beyond the composer’s original conception the so-called dramaturgy of harsh junctures. In short, these cuts shed important light on the composer’s original dramatic intentions and technical aspirations, and have lingered for over one hundred years without being considered for reinstatement.
Year: 2022
Access Model: subscription only
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: The Journal of Musicology
Publisher: University of California Press

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