Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana

Mascagni’s one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana – nowadays all but inseparable in the opera house from its regular double-bill partner Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci – is set in Sicily, where passions traditionally run high. The fact that it is Easter Sunday does nothing to modify the deadly jealousy of the carter Alfio when he discovers, while most of the villagers are at Mass, that his wife is having an affair with a young peasant called Turiddu. At the end of Mass and before Alfio exacts his revenge on Turiddu there is a serenely melodious orchestral Intermezzo which echoes the music sung in the church and which, if only he were in a mood to listen, would surely inspire Alfio to extend Christian forgiveness to all concerned. Unfortunately, he is in no such mood.