The Stories of CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA and PAGLIACCI
The Stories
of
CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA
and
PAGLIACCI

Teatro Lirico D'Europa

Giorgio Lalov
Artistic Director

One-act Operas by
Pietro Mascongni
and
Ruggero Leoncavallo

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Pagliacci
Make-believe leads to murder when a troupe of travelling clowns stops in
rural Calabria. The restless Nedda, stifled in marriage and trapped by endless touring, seeks solace in an affair with Silvio, a local villager. That night during the performance, her enraged husband Canio falls apart behind his clown mask. Unable to separate the play from reality, he stabs Nedda. When Silvio rushes the stage, Canio impales him too. The comedy is
ended and the heart of a man is laid bare.

Cavalleria Rusticana
Powerful emotions erupt when Turiddu, a swaggering villager, shames young Santuzza, casts her aside, and resumes his illicit affair with Lola. Enraged, Santuzza tells Lola’s husband Alfio everything. Seeking vengeance, he viciously kills Turiddu in front of the horrified villagers. Santuzza is left to grieve, and the town to mourn, torn apart by callous hearts and fatal passions.
Historical Background
Cavalleria Rusticana was the first opera that Mascagni wrote (although Pinotta only premiered in 1932 was written earlier) and remains the most well known of his 16 operas. (Apart from Cavalleria rusticana, only Iris and L'amico Fritz have remained in the standard repertory.) Its success has been phenomenal from its first performance in the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on May 17, 1890 until the present day. At the time of Mascagni's death in 1945, the opera had been performed more than fourteen thousand times in Italy alone.

Around 1890, when Cavalleria Rusticana premiered, Leoncavallo was a little-known composer. After seeing Cav's success, he decided to write a similar opera. It was to be in one act and composed in the verismo style.

Pagliacci was an instant success and it remains popular today. It contains one of opera's most famous and popular arias, Recitar! ... Vesti la giubba (literally, To perform! ... Put on the costume, but more often known in English as On with the motley).

As a staple of the standard operatic repertoire, it appears as number 14 on Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America


 
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