Cavalleria Rusticana is a 1959 Australian television play, an adaptation of the opera by Pietro Mascagni.
[2] Music was provided by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Georg Tintner.
It was the fourth live opera from the ABC following, "The Telephone," "Pagliacci", and "Prima Donna."
He praised its "well planned and well designed sets" but thought it lacked movement and felt the singing "was often heavy and uncertain" and acting "either stagey or inhibited, and sometimes both..
It seems that the initial requirements for local televised opera is singers who can adapt their style to the searching eye of the camera.