Mascagni’s draws on church music in this masterful and intense evocation of a small community and one guilt-ridden woman’s position outside of it.

The grand Easter Hymn, scored for pretty much the whole cast of the opera, starts with just a solo organ playing from inside the church nearby. Then we hear an unaccompanied choir singing (in Latin) the beginning of the service – ‘Regina coeli, laetare’ – with the voices of the congregation responding ‘Alleluja!’. The choir sings two more phrases and the congregation responds. All this is out of sight.