given birth to a son named Massimo,
and Lola to a daughter, Anita. The youthful pair grow up side by side
in the Sicilian village and fall in love with one another. They might
have married and in a way expiated the sins of their parents had not
Alfio overheard his wife, Lola, confess that Turiddu, not her husband,
is the father of Anita, The lovers are thus discovered to be half
brother and sister. This reminder of his betrayal by Lola infuriates
Alfio anew. He rushes upon his wife to kill her, but Santuzza, who
hates him as the slayer of her lover, throws herself between and
plunges her dagger in Alfio's heart. Having thus taken revenge for
Turiddu's death, Santuzza dies out of hand, Lola, as an inferior
character, falls in a faint, and Massimo makes an end of the delectable
story by going away from there to parts unknown.

In Cilea's "Tilda" a street singer seeks to avenge her wrongs upon a
faithless lover. She bribes a jailor to connive at the escape of a
robber whom he is leading to capital punishment. This robber she elects
to be the instrument of her vengeance. Right merrily she lives with him
and his companions in the greenwood until the band captures the
renegade lover on his wedding journey. Tilda rushes upon the bride with
drawn dagger, but melts with compassion when she sees her victim in the
attitude of prayer. She sinks to her knees beside her, only to receive
the death-blow from her seducer. There are piquant contrasts in this
picture and Ave Marias and tarantellas in the music.

Take the story of Giordano's "Mala Vita." Here the hero is a young dyer
whose dissolute habits have brought on tuberculosis of the lungs. The
principal object of his amours is the wife of a friend. A violent
hemorrhage warns him of approaching death. Stricken with fear he rushes
to the nearest statue of the Madonna and registers a vow; he will marry
a wanton, effect her redemption, thereby hoping to save his own
miserable life. The heroine of the opera appears and she meets his
requirements. He marries her and for a while she seems blest. But the
siren, the Lola in the case, winds her toils about him as the disease
stretches him on the floor at her feet. Piquancy again, achieved now
without that poor palliative, punishment of the evil-doer.

Tasca's "A Santa Lucia" has an appetizing story about an oysterman's
son who deserts a woman by whom he has a child, in order to marry one
to whom he had previously been affianced. The women