Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry): Melodrama in One Act
Turiddu is a village fop. He loves in his way Lola and is beloved in her way by Lola. But he must serve in the army; when he returns, he finds Lola the wife of Alfio, a wagoner. Piqued. He seeks consolation in the love of Santuzza, whom he seduces; and she adores him. Lola in turn is exasperated. She woos Turiddu hotly, and he becomes a double traitor. Santuzza, Easter day. Is under the ban ofthe church. She cannot kneel before the altar in prayer and rejoicing. Knowing that Turiddu has been with Lola. She appeals to his former love, reminds him of his promises. As she kneels to him, and as Turiddu sulks, Lola crosses the square on her way to the church. The women exchange bitter words. Lola enters the church. Turiddu strikes Santuzza and follows Lola. Mad with jealousy, the deserted woman tells the whole story of her shame and the baseness of the guilty couple to the wagoner. The service is over, and there is mirth and there is drinking in front of the tavern. Alfio refuses to drink with Turiddu and bites his ear, a challenge to mortal combat. Turiddu, conscience-stricken, feeling the swift approach of death, bids his mother Lucia good-bye. Alfio kills him with his knife behind the scenes. Women rush upon the stage in terror. The cry is heard, Neighbor Turiddu is murdered. Santuzza falls like a dead body.
This melo-drama has been compared to a tragic story by de Maupassant. It might with greater reason be likened unto A Yorkshire Tragedy that dreadful drama of the Elizabethan age, for in this opera is found an intensely passionate instinct rather than the faultless art of the Frenchman. In the opera, as in the short and brutal tragedy, are these elements: simple means employed by simple characters shake and harrow the spectator; the march of inevitable events rasps his nerves and takes away his breath; dramatic touches are blows in their directness; the occa sional absence of judicious art is forgotten in the exhibition of fierce truth, and if the bloody chapter were continued, the mind and the body could not endure the strain.
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