This chapter examines what it meant to perform translation in Cavalleria rusticana. It examines: 1) the original novella written by Giovanni Verga in 1880; 2) the 1884 stage version adapted by the author and interpreted by a variety of star actors, including Eleonora Duse and the Sicilian dialect players; and 3) the 1890 operatic version composed by Pietro Mascagni and performed by celebrity sopranos, such as Emma Calvé. Through close examination of newspaper reviews and early accounts, it is argued that performing translation meant generating and circulating an exoticized ‘brand’ of Sicilian-ness in and outside the Italian peninsula shortly after political unification in 1861. This chapter thus offers new perspectives into questions of racial stereotypes, and a provides basis for new insights into the Sicilian dialect players, in particular, who, pioneering a physical and bodily form of communication, transcended language barriers and mediated the foreign text through a kind of translation that went beyond the written word.

For over a century, flamenco has been closely associated with productions of Carmen around the world. Bizet’s gypsy protagonist is often depicted as a flamenco performer while it has become commonplace to perceive aspects of flamenco in Bizet’s score. Yet this nexus only developed gradually during the first three decades of the opera’s existence. Bizet was largely unfamiliar with flamenco and composed Carmen while flamenco as we recognise it today was still coalescing in Spain, especially in the flamenco-orientated cafés cantantes of Seville and Madrid. During the Belle Époque the rise of flamenco and its global recognition occurred almost in tandem with Carmen’s establishment in the international operatic repertory. French and Spanish opera singers of this period, from Emma Calvé to Elena Fons and Maria Gay, sought hispanic authenticity for their Carmens by drawing on the Spanish entertainment cultures of Seville, Granada and even Barcelona. The tripartite structure of this chapter employs the conceit of offering different perspectives on the intersection of Carmen and flamenco in the Belle Époque loosely framed around the basic elements of the artform: toque y palos, baile and cante.