Cavalleria rusticana

The Intermezzo is an orchestral piece played between the opera's two scenes and is one of the most frequently performed standalone orchestral excerpts in all of opera. It was memorably used in the finale of Francis Ford Coppola's film The Godfather Part III, where Anthony Corleone performs it on stage.

The opera runs approximately 70–75 minutes and is almost never performed alone. It is traditionally paired with Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci in the famous double bill known as 'Cav and Pag,' since both are short Italian verismo operas ending in a murder on a religious holiday.

Mascagni submitted Cavalleria rusticana to the 1890 competition held by the Milanese publisher Edoardo Sonzogno, which attracted 73 submissions. It won the competition and premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on May 17, 1890, launching Mascagni to international fame overnight.

The opera culminates on Easter Monday when Turiddu is publicly called out by Alfio, the husband of Santuzza, whom Turiddu has seduced and abandoned. Turiddu bites Alfio's ear in the Sicilian sign of accepting a fight to the death, and is killed offstage, with the news delivered in the opera's final moments.