Pietro Mascagni’s second opera, “L’amico Fritz”, is nowhere as popular as his first, “Cavalleria Rusticana”, and is thought far inferior, a light romantic comedy, whereas the first was the founding work of the “verismo” style. “L’amico Fritz”, though, is in fact much darker. The prior opera was a straightforward revenge story lifted into the permanent international repertoire by the lyricism of long orchestral passages which supply “background music” for the stage evocation of a peasant culture. That foreshadowed a life long operatic style in which Mascagni primarily used music as a way to provide a setting for and comment on dramatic action rather than as a way to provide musical enhancement for dialogue.