LIFE&TIMES
A quick guide to the main events in the life of Pietro Mascagni THE LIFE 1863 THE TIMES
1863
Pietro Mascagni is born on 7 December in
LIVORNO, Italy, the son of a baker. Against his father’s wishes, he pursues a musical career from an early age.
1881
He achieves recognition as a composer with the cantata In filanda. It wins him financial support to attend the Milan Conservatory where he shares a room with Puccini.
1888
His Cavalleria rusticana wins the
Sovogno one-act opera competition, its contemporary subject matter spearheading a new style of opera known as verismo.
1901
At the height of his popularity, Mascagni is surprised by the failure of LE MASCHERE. Only the performances that he himself conducts receive a decent reception.
1915
With his music for Nini Oxilia’s Rapsodia Santanica, he makes his first and only step into film music.
1935
His opera Nerone, in which he seeks a new way to portray reality through historical metaphors, is a success.
BENITO MUSSOLINI, though, is unimpressed.
1945
After several years of ill health, he dies peacefully on 2 August 1945.
1863
Situated close to La Scala opera house, The Grand Hotel et de Milan, a future favourite of the famous and fashionable, opens for the first time.
1881
The Italian explorer GIUSEPPE MARIA GIULIETTI and 13 of his companions are killed by Afar tribesmen while on an expedition in the Assab region of Ethiopia.
1888
The historic walls of the GHETTO OF ROME, a desperately poor area of Jewish segregation created in 1555 under the order of Pope Paul IV, are torn down. 1901
Conducted by senator Giuseppe Saredo, the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Naples investigates and then reports years of bad governance and widespread corruption in the southern Italian city.
1915
After weighing up whether or not to remain neutral, Italy enters World War One by opening hostilities against Austriahungary, followed by the Ottoman
Empire and then Germany.
1935
The Italian author
CESARE PAVESE, a staunch anti-fascist, is arrested and imprisoned for having letters from a political prisoner in his possession.
1945
Attempting to flee from Milan to safety in Switzerland after the collapse of his government, Benito Mussolini is captured and executed by Italian partisans in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra.