Mascagni studied at the conservatory at Milan, but, unable to submit to the discipline of his master, Amilcare Ponchielli, he left to join a traveling opera company. In 1889 he won the first prize in a competition with his one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana, based on a Sicilian melodrama by Giovanni Verga. Produced at the Teatro Costanzi, Rome, on May 17, 1890, it was an instant success and subsequently maintained its popularity, usually being given with Ruggero Leoncavallo's one-act Pagliacci. Le maschere (1901), reviving the commedia dell'arte, is musically superior, though it had little success. He succeeded Arturo Toscanini as musical director of La Scala, Milan, in 1929. Among Mascagni's other operas are L'amico Fritz (1891), Iris (1898), and Nerone (1935), the last glorifying Benito Mussolini.