Fascist Exaltation

Seats at Milan's La Scala sold for as high as $38 apiece one night last week. Black-shirted Fascists peppered the brimming opera audience. When a thick-set old man showed himself in the orchestra pit the whole house broke into a bedlam of cheers. "Evviva, evviva Mascagni!"

At 71 the composer of Cavalleria Rusticana was conducting the premiere of Nero, his 18th opera. The occasion brought forth Italy wide acclaim because, besides having written one brief masterpiece, Pietro Mascagni has been a shrewd and ardent Fascist. Government authorities boosted the new opera long before it was performed, announced that Mascagni had captured ''the true spirit of Imperial Rome.'' Mascagni claimed that he had been mulling over the Nero theme for 40 years, that his enthusiasm had lately been rekindled by ''Fascist exaltation."

Mascagni's enthusiasm extended even to his murderous crack-brained hero who appeared on La Scala stage as a dreamer who fiddled while Rome was burning because he was sincerely absorbed in his music. La Scala had staged a lavish production but, even to many who cheered, it all seemed rather foolish. First act was in a murky tavern where Nero, in disguise, fights a gladiator and ensnares a trembling slave girl who sings duets with him after she has become accustomed to the splendors of Palatine Hill. When the people revolt Nero is still in a dream, staging wild bacchanalia or strumming on his lyre. When he stabs himself he gasps his own epitaph: ''What a great artist dies!"'

In their urge to praise, Italian critics picked on a rousing wine song, a melodic love duet, a last-act intermezzo. No one was candid enough to say that Mascagni had his one brief inspiration 45 years ago when he was an obscure, half-nourished piano-teacher. Until then his way had been consistently hard. His father, a baker, disowned him because he refused to be a lawyer. An uncle helped him to get into a musical conservatory. But Mascagni rebelled against the rules, struck out for himself. He toured as conductor of a fourth-rate opera company until he married the stern domineering woman who even now jealously supervises the selection of his casts.

Mascagni's one flash came when he was 26. A prize was offered for a one-act opera and the impoverished teacher, tired of a macaroni diet, worked at white heat for eight days and nights until he had completed Cavalleria Rusticana. On that lusty, full-blooded music he has lived ever since. He conducted it in the U. S. 32 years ago. The visit was notorious. Though his contract called for $4,000 per week, he had constant trouble with his creditors. He ranted at Manhattan's noise, Manhattan's food. He had his biggest tantrum because a laundry ruined his dress shirts.

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