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Author of almost one hundred libretti for opera composers of the first half of the 18th century, Felice Romani has perfected a poetry technique that allows a successful combination of music and verse, thus becoming the favourite librettist of the belcanto authors Donizetti and Bellini. His stories are not original, but he masters the ability to adapt his sources in a light yet potent poetry with a strong impact upon the audience. Anna Bolena, put into music by Gaetano Donizetti, presents the tragic story of Henry ...

The libretto of Cavalleria rusticana, the well-known opera by Pietro Mascagni, was written by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, who reduced to melodrama a play by Giovanni Verga, in its turn a dramatization of a short-story with the same title he had previously written. Our investigation focuses on the libretto as a literary text to be analysed in comparison with its prose sources. We propose an in-depth analysis of the similarities and differences between the libretto and the play, in an attempt to un...