Pagliacci
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Performance Date: January 9, 2008 Running Time: 7:00-9:00 p.m.; one intermission Available Tickets: 60 Music and Libretto: Ruggiero Leoncavallo Place:
Montalto, Time: Between 1865 and 1870 First Performance:
Language: Italian Story: Canio, the leader of a troupe of traveling players, brings tragedy to an unsuspecting town when he kills the female lead (his wife Nedda) on stage during the final scene of their play. What makes the opera truly eerie is that the events of the play are nearly identical to the events of the actor’s lives. So, when Canio kills Nedda, the audience of the play initially thinks that a murder has only been acted out. Our horror comes in watching the play audience realize what has actually happened! Historical Context: Pagliacci is an example of verismo, a late 19th century genre of opera in which the story was to stay as true to real life as possible. The realism of the opera is reinforced by the fact that the plot of the opera was taken from an actual occurrence in Leoncavallo’s boyhood hometown of Montalto where an actor killed his wife after a performance. The characters in the play-within-an-opera, including Columbine, Harlequin, and Pagliacci himself, are all borrowed from an Italian form of comedic theatre known as commedia dell’arte. Pagliacci is often paired with Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana because of their similar stories of love and revenge and their realistic style. |