Cavalleria Rusticana Intermezzo, the prelude to the famous opera by Mascagni, is the soundtrack of the dramatic conclusion of The Godfather Part III. This beautiful music for one of the most dramatic movie scenes.
The Godfather was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and owes part of its success to its beautiful music. For the main soundtrack Coppola chose the Italian composer Nino Rota, best known for his scores to Federico Fellini’s films. Rota borrowed and transformed a theme from an earlier work of his as the score’s main motive, presenting a lovely, lonely, minor-key melody that evoked the Italian heritage on which Coppola built the film’s sense of grand tragedy. Rota’s soundrack to The Godfather entered the charts and is still one of the most recognizable musical motives in movies history.
The final 45-minutes of The Godfather part III are based on a production of “Cavalleria Rusticana,” which stars Michael Corleone’s son as Turiddu. The opera’s most famous piece, the intermezzo is showcased outside the context of the performance, and leads to the tragic ends of the movie. The assassination of Michael Corleone’s daughter who dies in his arms; flashback of Corleone’s life and happy moments and then a Corleone old and weak who sits alone in the garden of Don Tommasino’s villa and suddenly slumps over in his chair, falling to the ground.
Music remains compelling. The Cavalleria Rusticana Intermezo fits in well and suggest some of the influences on Rota’s style.
