‘Mamma, quel vino è generoso’ (Turiddu’s Farewell, Cavalleria rusticana)

Program notes

About the Work

Pietro Mascagni was an unknown music teacher in the small town of Cerignola when he entered the one-act opera competition run by the Milan publisher Edoardo Sonzogno. His Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic Chivalry), based on a Sicilian story by Giovanni Verga, won, and its premiere at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 17 May 1890 was a sensation. The opera is usually named as the first great work of verismo, the “realist” style of Italian opera about ordinary people and violent passions, and it is still often paired with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, heard later tonight.

The story takes place on Easter morning in a Sicilian village. Turiddu, back from military service, has found his fiancée Lola married to the carter Alfio; he has seduced Santuzza, and then resumed his affair with Lola. Santuzza, abandoned, tells Alfio. After a drinking song outside his mother’s wine shop, Turiddu is challenged by Alfio to a duel to the death.

“Mamma, quel vino è generoso” is Turiddu’s farewell to his mother, Mamma Lucia, moments later. Flushed with wine, he tells her he must go outside for air, asks her, if he does not return, to be a mother to Santuzza. Then he is gone, and within moments a scream announces that he has been killed.

What to Listen For

The scene begins with an almost casual excuse (“Mother, that wine is strong”), but the pretence cracks quickly. Listen for the agitated orchestra beneath the voice, and for the growing urgency as Turiddu’s thoughts turn to Santuzza. The climax comes with his repeated pleas for a kiss (“Un bacio, mamma! Un altro bacio!”) and a final cry of “Addio!”, sung at full force, before he rushes out.