Opera "Rural Honor": content, interesting facts, video, history

P. Mascagni opera "Rural honor"

When there is more passion than love, and more hatred than faith ... Pietro Mascagni's opera Rural Honor was created from such emotions, which formed the features and values ​​of Verism. And together with him, she brought peasants, wandering comedians, beggars and destitute people to the biggest stages of the world, as opposed to traditional opera aristocrats, historical figures or heroes of legends.

Summary of the opera Maskagni "Rural honor"and many interesting facts about this work read on our page.

Summary of "Rural Honor"

Prehistory Before Turrid went to the army, he had a romantic relationship with Lola. But when he returned home, the young man discovered that his beloved married Alfio. Despite the fact that the old passion was still burning in him, he was forgotten in the warm embrace of Santuzza, which he promised to marry. Lola, seeing that Turrida is trying to start life with another, again lured him into their networks ...

Early morning Easter Sunday in a Sicilian village, 1880 Turridu returns from a night meeting with Lola. Meanwhile, Santuzza comes to his home and, knowing where her fiance actually spent the night, begs Lucia to tell the truth about this. Turridu enters, Santuzza arranges a scene of jealousy for him, and he chases her away. In her hearts she finds Alfio and tells him about the relationship between Turrid and Lola. The offended husband causes the contender to a duel and kills.

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Interesting Facts

• “Rural honor” was highly appreciated by Mascagni’s contemporaries like D. Verdi and P.I. Chaikovsky. And Verdi called the composer perhaps his successor. Only partly he managed to justify such a flattering expectations of the great maestro - among his subsequent 14 operas were the Friend of Fritz and Iris, popular at one time, but now these names are hardly familiar even to fans of the genre, since they have not risen to the level of “Rural honor. " And the real "heir" of the traditions of Italian opera, a musician who brought her to a new level of development, became D. Puccini.
• Maskany is called "one opera man" or "author of one opera." At the same time, during his lifetime he was put in a row of the largest composers of Italy. What is its phenomenon? First of all, having tasted success, Maskany did not want to go along the beaten track, developing the direction of direction. He was interested in decadence, expressionism, orientalism, operettanew plots. Publisher Julio Ricordi, with whom the composer began to cooperate after a conflict with Sonzono, offered him a libretto on the novel "Wolf" of the same Verga. Maskany refused and was eventually forced to look for a new publisher.

• Novel D. Verga attracted the attention of many musicians, and Mascagni was not even the first of them. In 1894, writer’s friend Giuseppe Perrotta wrote the symphonic poem Rural Honor. Just a month before the triumph of the Mascagni opera, in the same Theater of Kostanzi, the premiere of the opera “Evil Easter” by composer Stanislao Gastldon took place. It was a three-act work, not at all impressed by the sophisticated public. The most interesting thing is that Gastaldon also planned to participate in the Sonchono Competition, but it was bought by D. Ricordi, who immediately ordered an opera for Rome for him. In 1895, Florentine Oreste Bimboni in Palermo presented the opera Santuzza. In 1907, the Genoese Domenico Monleone wrote his “Country Honor”, ​​which was shown in Amsterdam. Mascagni's lawyers demanded a ban on the performance of a backup opera, their claims were satisfied, and Monleone shifted the music to another libretto, the opera became known as “The Battle of Falcons”. Only in 1998 the work of Monleone was re-executed in the original version. In addition to these fundamental works, in the 1890s, many parody and comic operas appeared on the plot of “Rural Honor” in different parts of the world.
• The phenomenal success of “Rural Honor” embroiled three people involved in its appearance - the author of the original source D. Verg, publisher E. Sonzono and P. Mascagni, who, up to 1893, in court found out the ownership of the copyright to the opera. Verga eventually sued a record amount of 143,000 lire from the publisher and composer.
• In 1940, Maskanya participated in the audio recording of “Rural Honor”, ​​organized in honor of the 50th anniversary of the premiere.

• Despite the cliché of verismo assigned to Mascagni, the composer himself did not agree with him, without naming himself or his work.
• The party of Santuzza turned out to be fateful in the career of Gemma Bellinchione, her first performer. In this role, both her singing and acting talents were revealed in full, the main parts of Puccini and Giordano, Massenet and Richard Strauss began to trust her.
• During the life of Mascagni "Rural Honor" only in Italy was performed 14,000 times - about 21 performances every month for 55 consecutive years. Now on world scenes, the opera is given more than 700 times a year.
• The song Intermezzo for Andrea Bocelli wrote the song "Mascagni", dedicated to the great composer.

Love and Passion of Pietro Mascagni

In the life of Mascagni himself there was plenty of passion, similar to the fact that so tormented his heroes. In 1888, he married Lina Carboniani, who supported him in difficult moments of lack of money and obscurity. Their firstborn, born before the wedding, died at four months. Lina was a very practical lady, even in moments of fame and prosperity she continued to economically manage the household. She was not only a faithful wife, but also a devoted man, ready to support any undertaking of her husband. The commencement of work on “Rural Honor” coincided with the birth of Domenico’s long-awaited son, followed by the birth of another son and daughter. Maskany was a caring husband and a loving, considerate father. He stayed that way when another woman appeared in his life, Anna Lolly.

It happened in 1910, he was 47, she was 22 ... A seemingly trivial intrigue of an aging man with a young beauty turned into a bond that only the composer's death broke in 1945. For 35 years, Mascagni actually had two families, each of whom knew about the existence of the other. Mascagni spent many summer seasons with Anna in the small town of Bagnara di Romagna. Today, there, in the house of a local priest, a small museum has been organized, in which 5,000 unpublished Mascagni letters to his beloved are kept, testifying to his unfading feeling. The opera "Isabo" and "Parisin" the composer dedicated it to her.

The history of the creation and productions of "rural honor"

Milan newspaper tycoon Edoardo Sonzono in 1888 announced another one-act opera contest. A few years earlier, the jury of this competition, for various reasons, ignored the first opera by D. Puccini. The bad experience of a friend did not stop the young composer Pietro Mascagni. Three years have passed since he left the Milan Conservatory with scandal. His family needed it so much that he was not able to buy even the note paper. Having settled as a conductor and teacher at a music school in the Apulian city of Cerinola (geographically, this is the "spur" of the Italian "boot"), Mascagni unsuccessfully tried to write operas.

The libretto composer ordered his friend, Giovanni Tardzhoni-Tosetti, and the writer Guido Menaschi. It is based, without exaggeration, the hit of its time, the play by Giovanni Verga "Rural Honor". She successfully went to the drama theater, the main role in one of the productions was played by the legendary E. Duze. The music was ready in two months, but Mascany pulled in with sending notes, because he doubted the success of his composition. At the last moment, the manuscript was sent to the contest by his spouse, Lina, to whom we still appreciate such a decisive act. The jury chose a winner for a long time from 73 submitted works. Rural Honor won the first prize, and its author received two years of content and a contract with the Sonzono Publishing House. Everything that Mascagi could only dream about has come true!

May 17, 1890 in the Roman Theater Kostanzi held the premiere of "Rural Honor". Unconditional success forced the theaters to enter into contracts with the composer for productions. In the same year, the opera stepped over the borders of Italy and began a triumphal march through scenes in Europe, and a year later it was staged in many US cities. The Russian public heard the novelty also in 1891 thanks to the performance of the Italian troupe, and in the following two years various private operas began to perform it. In 1894, Rural Honor was performed at the Mariinsky Theater.

Masterpiece Maskany opened in the opera a new direction - Verism. The second and only talent of the “Pagliacci” R. Leoncavallo steel verst opera, written two years later. Often they go in one evening, in chronological order, through the intermission from each other. In the opera world, this tandem was nicknamed Cav-Pag ("Cavalleria rusticana" and "Pagliacci").

Music "Rural Honor" in the movies

The film industry was not able to pass by the amazingly beautiful melody Intermezzo from Rural Honor. This music can be heard in the films:

• "Kill Smoochy" (2002)
• "Midsummer Night's Dream" (1999)
• "Four days in September" (1997)
• In the 1980 film Mad Bull, in addition to Intermezzo, excerpts from the operas of Mascagni William Ratcliffe and Silvano are heard.

Fragments of various arias and duets from the opera are included in the soundtracks of the films:

• "Underground Empire", the television series (2010)
• "Lovers" (2008)
• The Soprano Clan, television series (2006-2007)
• "Funny Games" (2007)
• "Because you are mine" (1952)

But perhaps the most famous film in which "Rural Honor" is not just background music, but a means of developing action, the driving force of the tragic finale, where what is happening on the stage of the opera house is closely intertwined with events in the life of the characters - "The Godfather, Part III ". The last cry of the film "They killed the girl Maria!" echoes the final cue of the opera “Killed Turridu!”, and the memories and death of Michael Corleone accompany the incredibly poignant Intermezzo.

The most famous adaptation of “Rural Honor” is the production of Franco Zeffirelli in 1982 with Placido Domingo (Turridu) and Elena Obraztsova (Santuzza). It would not be an exaggeration to call their images reference.

"Sorry, I wrote"Rural honor"first. I was crowned before I became king" - over time, this is how the composer appreciated both the phenomenal success of his opera and the futile attempts to repeat it. “Rural honor” remains the only masterpiece of Pietro Mascagni. A similar curse befell another eminent Verista, R. Leoncavallo. The primitive characters of the opera operas with bright, but base passions were not too inspiring even for their authors. However, this does not in any way detract from the dignity of the “Village Honor”, ​​filled with amazingly beautiful music and impressive dramatic scenes.