“CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA” P. MASCAGNI IN THE EUROPEAN MUSICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT: TOWARDS THE PROBLEM OF PERFORMING INTERPRETATION

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to trace the artistic, structural-compositional and interpretive features of the opera “Cavalleria rusticana” by P. Mascagni in their conditionality by the aesthetics of verismо. The methodology of work was formed on the basis of a complex of general humanitarian and special musicological scientific methods and approaches, among which the leading ones are historical, genre-stylistic, semiotic, textual and performing. The scientific novelty is determined by the disclosure of the specifics of Mascagni’s opera on the example of the opera Cavalleria rusticana with tracing the leading trends and identifying features of the vocal style of this work with the release of updated principles of musical language of the composer. Conclusions. The desire to find new possible forms of development of the opera genre as a veristic drama was based on a masterful combination of traditional features with a significant update of fundamentally important levels of the opera, namely – the plot, which refers to life events and related emotional states of ordinary people ; dramatic, with the rejection of the multi-part structure in favor of one-part; stylistic, in which the principles of vocal intonation, orchestral palette and musical-linguistic principles are updated. It was P. Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria rusticana that became a kind of harbinger of musical verismо in its close proximity to the veristic drama of G. Verga and led to the emergence of a new vocal style and principles of musical language. These processes led to the expression of artistic features and principles of the general dramatic construction of the work with the elevation of the image of the hero as a participant in dialogic interaction with his environment on the one hand, on the other – with a tendency to symphony opera, which becomes noticeable not only also through the penetration of the characteristic features inherent in instrumental intonation in vocal parts.