This Sunday, I offer you one of my all-time favourites in the classical music world. My father tipped me off about this piece (my music appreciation comes from him), the heroic, the courageous, Intermezzo from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana.
YouTube tells me that this clip is from March 22, 2012, when the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Gustavo Dudamel performed it as an encore in Gothenburg Concert Hall.
I admit I know very little about the opera itself. Cavalleria Rusticana – Italian for ‘rustic chivalry’ – 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.
It involves many a tangled love affair and is considered one of the classic verismo, or ‘realism’, operas. It premiered on 17 May 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.
Keep an eye on the handsome violinist at the beginning . . . one of the many bonuses to watching the orchestra play it on YouTube and not just sticking to Spotify.
Enjoy.
