Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci

These two short Italian operas, composed within years of each other by two musical youngsters, and since so often paired as Cav andPag, both show a gritty social realism which made them operatic novelties in the 1890s. 

Both are about sexual jealousy and the murderous consequences of female infidelity (never mind the boys) in a poor Sicilian village.  Down and dirty they are, with not a god or aristocrat to be seen!

This international co-production is true to that original novelty, setting both in the untidy streets, alleys, council hall and shops of a sparse village overrunning with a busy 1950’s crowd of locals and their children. 

It all turns on Paolo Fantin’s huge revolve, differently set for each opera but in both turning slowly on this detailed township, helping drive the stories.  Director Damiano Michieletto matches this with the same cinematic detail in the performances and, notably, the choreography and rich idiosyncrasies of the crowd chorus, each craftily costumed from the 50s by Carla Teti. 

While the more conventional opera musically, Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana has the most rousing score if with a simpler plot and characterisations.  Turiddu loses his betrothed to another man but she returns possessively when he takes up with Santuzza. The jealous husband then kills Turridu and Santuzza (Dragana Radakovic), shunned as a slut, finds solace with Turiddu’s grieving mother (Dominica Matthews). Both women are fabulous, powerful in the low notes of their female archetypes. 

Diego Torre’s tenor cuts through to the stars and he even manages to stir in us some empathy for Turiddu.

But in Leoncavallo’s more dramatically and musically complex Pagliacci, Torre’s acting and singing really excels as Canio.  Heading a commedia troupe visiting town, Canio onstage plays the cuckolded clown but art becomes real life when he discovers the infidelity of his actress wife.  It all builds to an hallucinogenic climax of onstage murder, with the locals in their council hall seats agog like us. 

Anna Pinceva pines with frustrated desire as Canio’s wife Nedda while Samuel Dundas is her sweet village lover and Jose Carbo deeply malicious as the jealous Tonio.  It’s all very Italian, of course, but a thrillingly true double bill of musical drama sensitively conducted by Andrea Licata.

Remarkably, no further opera by either composer came close to his first huge success.

Martin Portus

Images: (top) Diego Torre as Canio, John Longmuir as Beppe and Anna Princeva as Nedda in Pagliacci and Sian Pendry as Lola, Diego Torre as Turridu, Samuel Dundas as Silvio and the Opera Australia Chorus in Cavalleria Rusticana. Photographer: Keith Saunders.