About the work
Guglielmo Ratcliff is a four-act opera by Pietro Mascagni to Andrea Maffei's Italian translation of Heinrich Heine's tragedy William Ratcliff. Mascagni began composing it as a student in Milan and only completed it years later as an established composer; it premiered on 16 February 1895 at La Scala in Milan.
Plot
Rejected by a woman, Wilhelm Ratcliff swears to kill every one of her future suitors and carries out this oath in a series of duels. In the end he also kills the woman he truly loves, her father, and finally himself.
Cultural significance
Mascagni regarded Guglielmo Ratcliff as his own favourite work, yet the opera failed at its premiere and remains rarely performed today. Unusually for Italian opera of the period, the libretto is written in blank verse without conventional arias, carried instead by four extended monologues for the title character.