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Pagliacci
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Pagliacci (Players, or Clowns) is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe. (Its name is sometimes incorrectly rendered as I Pagliacci with a definite article.)
Pagliacci premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini with Adelina Stehle as Nedda, Fiorello Giraud as Canio, Victor Maurel as Tonio, and Mario Ancona as Silvio.
It is the only one of Leoncavallo's operas that is still widely staged.
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Encyclopedia
Pagliacci (Players, or Clowns) is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe. (Its name is sometimes incorrectly rendered as I Pagliacci with a definite article.)
Pagliacci premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini with Adelina Stehle as Nedda, Fiorello Giraud as Canio, Victor Maurel as Tonio, and Mario Ancona as Silvio.
It is the only one of Leoncavallo's operas that is still widely staged. Since 1893, it has usually been performed in a double bill with Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, a pairing referred to in the operatic world colloquially as "Cav and Pag". This pairing has long been the norm in most places, however, some theatres have been very late in staging these two works together. For example, the Mikhaylovsky Theatre in St Petersburg presented the double bill for the first time only in February 2009.
History
Around 1890, when Cavalleria rusticana premiered, Leoncavallo was a little-known composer. After seeing its success, he decided to write a similar opera. It was to be in one act and composed in the verismo style. A lawsuit was brought against him for plagiarism of the libretto. Leoncavallo's defense was that the plot of the opera was based on a true story he had witnessed as a child. He claimed that a servant had taken him to a commedia performance in which the events of the opera had actually occurred. He also claimed that his father, who was a judge, had led the criminal investigation, and that he had documents supporting these claims. None of this evidence has ever appeared. Today most critics agree that the libretto was inspired by an 1887 play of Catulle Mendès entitled La Femme de Tabarin. Leoncavallo was living in Paris at the time of the premiere, and it is likely that he saw the play.
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). One of Enrico Caruso's recordings of Vesti la giubba was the first record to sell one million copies. In 1907, Pagliacci became the first entire opera to be recorded by the Puerto Rican tenor Antonio Paoli. In 1931, it became the first complete opera to be filmed with sound, in a now obscure version starring the tenor Fernando Bertini, in his only film, as Canio, and the San Carlo Opera Company.
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.
Roles
| Role | Role in Commedia | Voice type | Premiere Cast, May 21, 1892
(Conductor: Arturo Toscanini ) |
|---|
| Canio, head of the troupe | Pagliaccio | tenor | Fiorello Giraud | Nedda, Canio's wife,
in love with Silvio | Colombina, Pagliaccio's wife,
in love with Arlecchino | soprano | Adelina Stehle | | Tonio, the fool | Taddeo | baritone | Victor Maurel | | Beppe, actor | Arlecchino, Colombina's lover | tenor | | | Silvio, Nedda's lover | | baritone | Mario Ancona | | Chorus of villagers |
Synopsis
- Place: Calabria, near Montalto, on the Feast of the Assumption
- Time: between 1865 and 1870.
Prologue
During the overture, the curtain rises. From behind a second curtain, Tonio, dressed as his commedia character Taddeo, addresses the audience. (Si può?... Si può?... Signore! Signori! ... Un nido di memorie.) He reminds the audience that actors have feelings too, and that the show is about real humans.
Act 1
At three o'clock in the afternoon, the commedia troupe enters the village, and the villagers cheer. Canio describes the night's performance: The troubles of Pagliaccio. He says the play will begin at "ventitre ore". This is an agricultural method of time-keeping, and means the play will begin an hour before sunset. As Nedda steps down from the cart, Tonio offers his hand, but Canio pushes him aside and helps her down himself. The villagers suggest drinking at the tavern. Canio and Beppe accept, but Tonio stays behind. The villagers tease Canio that Tonio is planning an affair with Nedda. Canio warns everyone that while he may act the foolish husband in the play, in real life he will not tolerate other men making advances to Nedda. Shocked, a villager asks if Canio really suspects her. He says no, and sweetly kisses her on the forehead. As the church bells ring vespers, he and Beppe leave for the tavern, and Nedda is left alone.
Nedda, who is cheating on Canio, is frightened by Canio's vehemence (Qual fiamma avea nel guardo), but the birdsong comforts her (Stridono lassu). Tonio returns and confesses his love for her, but she laughs. Enraged, Tonio grabs Nedda, but she takes a whip, strikes him, and drives him off. Silvio, who is Nedda's lover, comes from the tavern, where he has left Canio and Beppe drinking. He asks Nedda to elope with him after the performance, and though she is afraid, she agrees. Tonio, who has been eavesdropping, leaves to inform Canio and catch Silvio and Nedda together. Canio and Tonio return, and as Silvio escapes, Nedda calls after him, "I will always be yours!"
Canio chases Silvio but does not catch him and does not see his face. He demands that Nedda tell him the name of her lover, but she refuses. He threatens her with a knife, but Beppe disarms him. Beppe insists that they prepare for the performance. Tonio tells Canio that her lover will surely give himself away at the play. Canio is left alone to put on his costume and prepare to laugh (Vesti la giubba - "Put on the costume").
Act 2
As the crowd arrives, Nedda, costumed as Colombina, collects their money. She whispers a warning to Silvio, and the crowd cheers as the play begins.
Colombina's husband Pagliaccio has gone away until morning, and Taddeo is at the market. She anxiously awaits her lover Arlecchino, who soon serenades her from beneath her window. Taddeo returns and confesses his love, but she mocks him and lets in Arlecchino through the window. He boxes Taddeo's ears and kicks him out of the room, and the audience laughs.
Arlecchino and Colombina dine, and he delivers a sleeping potion. When Pagliaccio returns, Colombina will drug him and elope with Arlecchino. Taddeo bursts in, warning that Pagliaccio is suspicious of his wife and is about to return. As Arlecchino escapes through the window, Colombina tells him, "I will always be yours!"
As Canio enters, he hears Nedda and exclaims, "Name of God! Those same words!" He tries to continue the play but loses control and demands to know her lover's name. Nedda, hoping to continue the play, calls Canio by his stage name "Pagliaccio" to remind him of the audience's presence. He answers with his arietta: No! Pagliaccio non son! and states that if his face is pale, it is not from the stage makeup but from the shame she has brought to him. The crowd, impressed by his emotional, and very real, performance, cheers him.
Nedda, trying again to continue the play, admits that she has been visited by the very innocent Arlecchino. Canio, furious and forgetting the play, demands the name of her lover. Nedda swears she will never tell him, and the crowd finally realizes they are not acting. Silvio begins to fight his way toward the stage. Canio, grabbing a knife from the table, stabs Nedda. As she dies she calls, "Help! Silvio!" Canio stabs Silvio and declares: La Commedia è finita! - "The play is over!". Originally, Tonio had the final line, La commedia è finita! but it has traditionally been given to Canio. Leoncavallo himself sanctioned this substitution.
Orchestration
The orchestra consists of 2 flutes, 1 piccolo, 2 oboes, 1 cor anglais, 2 clarinets, 1 bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, 2 harps, timpani, tubular bells, percussion (triangle, cymbals, bass drum, glockenspiel) and strings. Additionally, there is an onstage violin, oboe, trumpet, and bass drum. Also included in the final pages of the score is a part in the percussion section marked "T.T." (surprisingly not assigned in the instrumentation page at the beginning) which leads us to assume that it is actually a tam-tam (partly because Mascagni used one, although to much greater effect, at the final moments of Cavalleria rusticana). It is given three strokes right after Canio announces "The comedy is over"
Selected recordings
Paired with Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana
| Year | Cast
(Canio, Nedda, Tonio) | Conductor,
Opera House and Orchestra | Label |
|---|
| 1954 | Giuseppe di Stefano,
Maria Callas,
Tito Gobbi
| Tullio Serafin,
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: EMI Classics
Cat: 0724358683028 | | 1960 | Franco Corelli,
Lucine Amara,
Tito Gobbi | Lovro von Matacic
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: EMI Classics
Cat: 0077776396750 | | 1976 | Luciano Pavarotti,
Mirella Freni,
Ingvar Wixell | Giuseppe Patanè,
National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: Decca Classics
Cat: 00289 414 5902 | | 1981 | Plácido Domingo,
Teresa Stratas,
Juan Pons | Georges Prêtre
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus
(Film - directed by Franco Zeffirelli) | DVD: Deutsche Grammophon
Cat: 0044007 34033 | |
Paired with Puccini's Il Tabarro
Stand-alone recordings:
| Year | Cast
(Canio, Nedda, Tonio) | Conductor,
Opera House and Orchestra | Label |
|---|
| 1934 | Beniamino Gigli,
Pacetti,
Basiola | Franco Ghione,
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: Naxos
Cat:8.110155 | | 1951 | Richard Tucker,
Lucine Amara,
Giuseppe Valdengo | Fausto Cleva
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus | LP: Columbia Masterworks Records | | 1953 | Jussi Björling,
Victoria de los Ángeles,
Leonard Warren | Renato Cellini
RCA Victor Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: EMI Classics
Cat: 0724358565027 | | 1965 | Carlo Bergonzi,
Joan Carlyle,
Giuseppe Taddei
| Herbert von Karajan,
La Scala Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD:
Deutsche Grammophon
Cat: 449 727-2 | | 1971 | Plácido Domingo,
Montserrat Caballé,
Sherrill Milnes | Nello Santi
London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus | Audio CD: RCA |
Note: "Cat:" is short for catalogue number by the label company; "ASIN" is amazon.com product reference number.
Cultural references to Pagliacci
- In the August 14, 1939, episode of the Shadow, "The Tenor With a Broke Voice", the plot revolved around murders occurring during a production of Pagliacci. The killer turned out to be the former star of the production, who lost his voice during a performance and wanted revenge.
- Billie Holiday sang a song entitled "The Masquerade is Over" which included the lyrics, "I guess I'll have to play Pagliacci and get myself a clown's disguise / And learn to laugh like Pagliacci with tears in my eyes."
- The 1954 song Mr. Sandman contains the line, "Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci, and lots of wavy hair like Liberace."
- The January 26, 1966, episode of Batman, "The Joker is Wild", contained a scene in which the Joker appeared in a performance of Pagliacci. This scene contained the cliffhanger of the episode, and so was continued on the next episode, "Batman is Riled."
- Pagliacci is referenced in the classic 1960s Northern soul song, "I can't get away" by Bobby Garrett, in the line, "Just like Pagliacci, the clown, sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down."
- Pagliacci is referenced in the 1970 song, The Tears of a Clown by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in the line, "Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my sadness hid."
- In the 1987 film The Untouchables, Al Capone (played by Robert DeNiro), is attending a performance of the opera, openly crying, when his henchman, Frank Nitti, enters and tells him that he has killed Chicago Police Officer Jim Malone. Capone then stops crying and begins to quietly laugh.
- Pagliacci is mentioned in a 1989 song, Your Bozo's Back Again, by Ray Stevens. The song compares the singer to a true fool, a clown, since he constantly returns to an unfaithful lover. The line states: "I might as well wear grease paint, the way I play my part, but like Pagliacci, I'm playing with a real, live broken heart."
- In Will Eisner's world famous comic strip The Spirit, one of the episodes is titled Palyachi, The Killer Clown, released July 28, 1940. Eisner took the name from Leoncavallo's opera.
- In 1986, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen was first published. One of the book's characters, Rorschach, writes in his journal of a joke he once heard involving Pagliacci, in response to the death of another character, The Comedian. The joke consists of a man going to a doctor and complaining of depression. The doctor tells him to go to the show of the "great clown Pagliacci" in order to cheer him up. However, the man breaks down and cries, telling the doctor that he, in fact, is the clown Pagliacci. It is also a pop cultural reference to Will Eisner's The Spirit, in which one of the episodes is titled Palyachi, The Killer Clown. (Coming full circle with these pop culture Pagliacci references, this quote also reflects the oft-repeated lament that the perenially-depressed Groucho Marx was the only person in the world who didn't have Groucho Marx to cheer him up, as can be heard in the documentary The Unknown Marx Brothers, among other places.)
- "The Opera", an episode of the American sitcom Seinfeld, features a spoof of Pagliacci, wherein the major characters attend a performance of the opera while "Crazy" Joe Davola disguises himself as Pagliaccio the clown to seek a tragic revenge.
- On December 11, 2005, The Simpsons premiered a new episode which consisted of the Simpson family going to Italy, and after a twist of events, ending up on stage for a Pagliacci show at the Colosseum, with Sideshow Bob, along with his wife and son, trying to kill the whole family as part of the act.
- The most recent Batman Animated Series (The Batman) featured an episode in it's second season in which Bruce Wayne not only attends the Opera at the beginning but later on the Joker steals the original Pagliacci costume. The opening scene features Detective Yin's capture by the Joker and features music from the opera as does much of the episode with the Joker singing the aria "Vesti La Giubba" later on.
- "Vesta La Giubba" featured in the animated film "Happy Feet" (2006).
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