An apparently indifferent music student in Milan, Pietro Mascagni had settled into life as a music teacher when he entered a competition in 1889 for new single-act operas and won it—with the piece for which he will eternally be known, Cavalleria rusticana (meaning "rustic chivalry"). A torrid tale of crossed love and rough justice in a Sicilian village, the score proved an overnight success, taken with a vengeance into repertory by the world’s leading opera houses—where it’s stayed ever since, usually paired with Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1892) in a double bill that defines the operatic genre known as verismo: low-life drama, realistically presented with a high emotional impact. Born in 1863 in Livorno, Mascagni went on to write 15 operas and one operetta, with estimable successes in L’amico Fritz (1891), Iris (1898) and Il piccolo Marat (1921) that prove him more than a one-hit wonder. But later attempts to establish himself as a keeper of the flame of true (i.e., conservative) Italian music under Mussolini’s fascist regime tarnished his reputation. Since Mascagni's death in 1945, only Cavalleria rusticana has truly flourished outside Italy.