"Vesti la giubba" from Pagliacci
Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857 - 1919 )
Arrangement by Andre Sudol ('22)
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Pagliacci is a tale of jealousy and murder among a troupe of traveling clowns, a look at the intersection of art and life so definitive that it has in many people’s minds come to represent all opera. Written hot on the heels of the success of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci consciously utilizes the same verismo techniques in its musical and dramatic core and yet remains a distinct and equally powerful work of theater. While Cavalleria reveled in the realism of a village whose mores were unchanged since pre-history, the drama of Pagliacci found a way to expand the narrative vision of the verismo movement: the second half of the opera is a sort of opera-within-an-opera, and the frivolity of the subject of adultery in the traditional commedia dell’arte presentation of the traveling clowns becomes one of the driving forces of the climactic murder. By drawing this sort of a narrative frame around the on-stage action, Leoncavallo could harness all its irony, tradition, and symbolism while remaining firmly in realism, and using the artifice of theater to emphasize, rather than obscure, the truth of human emotion. Pagliacci, no less than Cavalleria, has seared itself onto the communal conscious well beyond the opera house, and the poignant image of the clown working to make an audience laugh while in a state of despair reverberates to the present day.
Act II
That evening, the villagers assemble to watch the performance, Silvio among them. Beppe plays Harlequin, who serenades Columbine, played by Nedda. He dismisses her buffoonish servant Taddeo, played by Tonio, and over dinner the two sweethearts plot to poison Columbine’s husband Pagliaccio, played by Canio. When Pagliaccio unexpectedly appears, Harlequin slips away. Taddeo maliciously assures Pagliaccio of his wife’s innocence, which ignites Canio’s jealousy. Forgetting his role and the play, he demands that Nedda tell him the name of her lover. She tries to continue with the performance, the audience enthralled by its realism, until Canio snaps. In a fit of rage he stabs Nedda and then Silvio, who rushes to her aid. Turning to the horrified crowd, Tonio announces that the comedy is over.
Program notes excerpted from https://www.metopera.org/globalassets/user-information/nightly-opera-streams/week-8/playbills/apr-25-cav-pag.pdf
About Ruggero Leoncavallo
About Ruggero Leoncavallo
Ruggero Leoncavallo
Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857 - 1919 ) was born in Naples on April 23, 1857. Though it was not performed publicly until some time later, Leoncavallo completed his first opera Chatterton in 1876, before his twentieth birthday. Not long after, Leoncavallo fell on hard times and became a café pianist and sometime teacher in Paris, London, and Egypt. The famous baritone Victor Maurel introduced him to Ricordi, the leading music publisher in Milan, beginning a tumultuous relationship. Heavily influenced by Wagner, Leoncavallo conceived of a three-part Italian answer to the Ring cycle. Only the first part, I Medici, was completed. Though technically proficient, it met with little success and caused ongoing problems with Ricordi. Leoncavallo either did not want to or could not finish the triology. Soon thereafter, Leoncavallo realized the potential of realism in opera and began composing what would be become Pagilacci , based on the facts of one of his magistrate father's legal cases. Pagliacci was an immediate success, and paved the way for public performances of his earlier works, I Medici and Chatterton. He finished his adaption of Murger's Scegravenes de la vie de Bohegraveme in 1892, fifteen months after Puccini's version. Though both Le Bohème's were successful initially, Puccini's has better stood the test of time. Zazagrave (1900) followed to great international success. Then came a commission from Wilhelm II for an opera celebrating the Hohenzollern dynasty. The German-language Der Roland von Berlin received great acclaim on its debut in 1904. An early adaptor of the new media of the early 20th century, Leoncavallo's version of Mattinata was recorded by Caruso in 1904, meeting with overwhelming success. His last completed work, Goffredo Mameli (1916) was a grand patriotic work. He left unfinished the most ambitious work of his life, adapting into operas the plays Edipo re and Prometeo. Edipo was debuted after his death in 1919.
Bio excerpted from
https://www.kennedy-center.org/artists/l/la-ln/ruggiero-leoncavallo/
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