They are the offspring of the same artistic movement, and it was the phenomenal [figure: a musical score excerpt] success of Mascagni's opera which was the spur that drove Leoncavallo to write his.

When "Cavalleria Rusticana" appeared on the scene, two generations of opera-goers had passed away without experiencing anything like the sensation caused by this opera.

They had witnessed the production, indeed, of great masterpieces, which it would be almost sacrilegious to mention in the same breath with Mascagni's turbulent and torrential tragedy, but these works were the productions of mature masters, from whom things monumental and lasting were expected as a matter of course; men like Wagner and Verdi.

The generations had also seen the coming of "Carmen" and gradually opened their minds to an appreciation of its meaning and beauty, while the youthful genius who had created it sank almost unnoticed into his grave; but they had not seen the advent of a work which almost in a day set the world on fire and raised an unknown musician from penury and obscurity to affluence and fame.

In the face of such an experience it was scarcely to be wondered at that judgment was flung to the winds and that the most volatile of musical nations and the staidest alike hailed the young composer as the successor of Verdi, the regenerator of operatic Italy, and the pioneer of a new school which should revitalize opera and make unnecessary the hopeless task of trying to work along the lines laid down by Wagner.
And this opera was the outcome of a competition based on the frankest kind of commercialism--one of those "occasionals" from which we have been taught to believe we ought never to expect anything of ideal and lasting merit.