Ten melodious excerpts from the glittering world of Italian opera are blended here into a fascinating concert program. Aside from the natural appeal inspired by the lyrical beauty of each selection, the complete program has an appeal of its own – the operas from which these excerpts were taken all originated in the same period, during the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century. Side A is devoted in its entirety to compositions of Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), who burst upon the operatic scene in 1889 with the one-act masterpiece ‘Cavalleria Rusticana.’ With this opera Mascagni set a high mark for the realistic style of verismo. He selected a story not from the costumed elegance of the historical periods but from the rural life of Sicily in his own time. Furthermore, he imbued this passionate drama of faithlessness and revenge with powerful, lusty music. The Drinking Song from ‘Cavalleria,’ which is heard in this Antonini concert, is one of the best known moments in Italian opera. In Italy, Mascagni’s ‘L’Amico Fritz’ (1891) is still very popular. This too is a story involving rural folk, but, in contrast to the torrid drama of ‘Cavalleria,’ it is rather in a romantic, boy-meets-girl vein, with a happy ending. From this opera, Maestro Antonini presents the famous Intermezzo, the idylic Cherry Duet, and the rousing March. The curtain raiser for Side A is provided by the overture to ‘Le Maschere.’ This was Mascagni’s eighth opera, written at the peak of the composer’s popularity. Although it received a simultaneous premiere in seven Italian cities in 1901, it failed to gain world-wide acceptance in spite of the composer’s strong melodic gifts which are shown to best advantage in the overture. Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s ‘I Pagliacci,’ which was written in 1890, is the inseparable companion to ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’ on the operatic stage. Thus the Minuet and Serenade from that opera’s second act “play within a play” is effective and natural programming for this operatic concert. In 1892, the same year when ‘I Pagliacci’ received its first performance, occurred the Italian premiere of Alfredo Catalani’s ‘La Wally,’ both under Arturo Toscanini’s baton. The aria which is played here in an instrumental transcription, occurs in the first act of Catalani’s romantic opera. Catalani, one of the brightest hopes of the post-Verdi generation of opera composers, died the following year, in 1893, at the age of thirty-nine. Guiseppe Verdi, the greatest name in Italian opera, is represented in this Antonini concert by Desdemona’s haunting Ave Maria from the last act of ‘Otello,’ Verdi’s tragic masterpiece of 1887, his seventy-fourth year. To complete this operatic program Maestro Antonini selected two excerpts – the Intermezzo and Manon’s second act aria – from Puccini’s ‘Manon Lescaut’ (1893). Giacomo Puccini was to become the foremost heir to Verdi’s artistic heritage, and the greatest name in Italian opera during the first quarter of the twentieth century.