His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music.

While it was often held that Mascagni, like Ruggero Leoncavallo, was a "one-opera man" who could never repeat his first success, L'amico Fritz and Iris have remained in the repertoire in Europe (especially Italy) since their premieres.

[7] Mascagni wrote fifteen operas, an operetta, several orchestral and vocal works, and also songs and piano music.

He enjoyed immense success during his lifetime, both as a composer and conductor of his own and other people's music and created a variety of styles in his operas.

Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti ("Nanni") was born the same year in the same city and became Mascagni's lifelong friend and collaborator.

In 1876, at the age of 13, Mascagni began musical studies with Alfredo Soffredini, who founded the Instituto Musicale di Livorno (later called Istituto Cherubini).

In Milan, Mascagni met the noted composer Giacomo Puccini, and was a student of Amintore Galli, artistic director of the Casa Musicale Sonzogno [it].

The cantata In Filanda became Pinotta, and was proposed for the musical contest of the Conservatorio, but as his registration was late, it was not accepted.

In 1885, Mascagni composed Il Re a Napoli in Cremona, a romance for tenor and orchestra, on a text by Andrea Maffei.

In July 1888, Casa Musicale Sonzogno announced in the Teatro Illustrato its second competition for a one-act opera, to be judged by a panel including Galli and Antonio Ghislanzoni.

Mascagni won against seventy-two other operas, including Niccola Spinelli's Labilia and Vincenzo Ferroni [it]'s Rudello.

The première of Cavalleria rusticana, winner of the Sonzogno contest, was held 17 May at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.

It had outstanding success, and the opera was soon performed in both the north and south of Italy: Florence, Turin, Bologna, Palermo, Milan, Genoa, Naples, Venice and Trieste.

Mascagni premiered his L'amico Fritz, his second most successful opera, on 31 October 1891 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome.

In 1900, Mascagni toured Moscow and St. Petersburg and, on 17 January 1901, Le maschere was premiered in six Italian theatres.

In 1902 and 1903, he toured in Canada and the United States, (in particular Montreal, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco), where he conducted many of his and other composers' works.

Amica, based on a poem by Choudens with a French libretto by Paul Collin,[10] was premiered on 16 March 1905, in Monte-Carlo.

On 28 March, he began to work on Parisina in Bellevue, near Paris, sometimes with his daughter Emi, his mistress Anna Lolli, and the librettist Gabriele d'Annunzio.

Almost all the important Italian composers of the time were present, among them Puccini, Umberto Giordano and Riccardo Zandonai.

Sì, Mascagni's operetta, which he had been manoeuvred into writing by the impresario Carlo Lombardo, was premiered on 13 December in Rome.

In 1930, Mascagni conducted La bohème in Torre del Lago, as a homage to Puccini, who had died in 1924.

In 1940, celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of his most popular opera, Cavalleria rusticana, took place all over Italy, often with Mascagni conducting.

[12] The 1990 film The Godfather Part III used a production of Cavalleria rusticana at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo as the setting for its climax, with Michael Corleone's son Anthony as Turiddu.