Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci
"Cavalleria Rusticana"
Melodrama in one act by Pietro Mascagni
Libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci after Giovanni Verga
First performance on May 17, 1890 in Rome
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 23, 2005
"Pagliacci"
["The Bajazzo"]
Drama in two acts by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo
First performance on May 21, 1892 in Milan
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 23, 2005
recommended from 14 years
3 hours / One break
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right
It can be reassuring to know that the tears shed on stage are fake, that the feelings are fake and the pain isn't actually being felt by the performers. But the young Italian composers on the threshold of the 20th century were not concerned with calming down, on the contrary: they wanted to shake up the audience, draw them into the whirlpool of emotions, surprise them with comic and tragic twists and turns, the stories they copied from life take.
They found their concern pre-formed in the literary movement of 'verismo' [derived from 'il vero' = the true/the truth], and it is only logical that Pietro Mascagni chose a novella by its main protagonist Giovanni Verga as a model for his first work . Cavalleria rusticana had already proved its suitability for the stage in a dramatization that was also shown in Mascagni's hometown of Livorno. In 1880 the story was published in the collection Vita dei campi, which actually means life in the country, but because of the origin of the author in the German translation it is usually called Sicilian Village Stories.
With his debut, Mascagni effortlessly won the composition competition that the publisher Sonzogno had advertised for one-act operas in 1888/89. The extremely successful premiere in the Roman Teatro Costanzi on May 17, 1890 can be considered the birth of musical 'verismo'.
Only two years later did Ruggero Leoncavallo write the short opera PAGLIACCI with the famous prologue. The German title DER BAJAZZO correctly puts the main character in the singular, the plural in the original Italian was forced by the famous singer Victor Maurel, who had to sing the prologue as Tonio and whose role would otherwise not have appeared in the title of the work.
The sung prologue contains the credo of 'verismo': "The artist is a human being and must write for human beings. […] We are human beings of flesh and blood and we, like you, breathe the breath of this lost world.” Leoncavallo’s dialectic device is that in his story, which resembles the “Miscellaneous Reports” of a newspaper, the tragedy comes to a head precisely because because the performer of Bajazzo is no longer able to separate play and seriousness.
The combination of these two culmination points of the musical "verismo" to form a double evening, in English with the abbreviation CAV & PAG, has been common since the beginning of the 20th century. They resemble each other like twins and yet could not be more different: the overture is interrupted by singing, an interlude connects the two acts [yes, of course CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA is also a two-act work, only the competitive conditions demanded that the title page be 'in one act' stands!], southern Italian ambience in the presence of the authors, genre scenes of the choirs with descriptions of the scent of oranges or church bells. But otherwise: late blossoming of bel canto in Mascagni, leitmotifs and diverse orchestral effects in Leoncavallo, dominance of the church and the narrow-minded morality almost like Garcia Lorca here and full life with desire for distraction there.
Subject to change.
Melodrama in one act by Pietro Mascagni
Libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci after Giovanni Verga
First performance on May 17, 1890 in Rome
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 23, 2005
"Pagliacci"
["The Bajazzo"]
Drama in two acts by Ruggero Leoncavallo
Libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo
First performance on May 21, 1892 in Milan
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 23, 2005
recommended from 14 years
3 hours / One break
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right
It can be reassuring to know that the tears shed on stage are fake, that the feelings are fake and the pain isn't actually being felt by the performers. But the young Italian composers on the threshold of the 20th century were not concerned with calming down, on the contrary: they wanted to shake up the audience, draw them into the whirlpool of emotions, surprise them with comic and tragic twists and turns, the stories they copied from life take.
They found their concern pre-formed in the literary movement of 'verismo' [derived from 'il vero' = the true/the truth], and it is only logical that Pietro Mascagni chose a novella by its main protagonist Giovanni Verga as a model for his first work . Cavalleria rusticana had already proved its suitability for the stage in a dramatization that was also shown in Mascagni's hometown of Livorno. In 1880 the story was published in the collection Vita dei campi, which actually means life in the country, but because of the origin of the author in the German translation it is usually called Sicilian Village Stories.
With his debut, Mascagni effortlessly won the composition competition that the publisher Sonzogno had advertised for one-act operas in 1888/89. The extremely successful premiere in the Roman Teatro Costanzi on May 17, 1890 can be considered the birth of musical 'verismo'.
Only two years later did Ruggero Leoncavallo write the short opera PAGLIACCI with the famous prologue. The German title DER BAJAZZO correctly puts the main character in the singular, the plural in the original Italian was forced by the famous singer Victor Maurel, who had to sing the prologue as Tonio and whose role would otherwise not have appeared in the title of the work.
The sung prologue contains the credo of 'verismo': "The artist is a human being and must write for human beings. […] We are human beings of flesh and blood and we, like you, breathe the breath of this lost world.” Leoncavallo’s dialectic device is that in his story, which resembles the “Miscellaneous Reports” of a newspaper, the tragedy comes to a head precisely because because the performer of Bajazzo is no longer able to separate play and seriousness.
The combination of these two culmination points of the musical "verismo" to form a double evening, in English with the abbreviation CAV & PAG, has been common since the beginning of the 20th century. They resemble each other like twins and yet could not be more different: the overture is interrupted by singing, an interlude connects the two acts [yes, of course CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA is also a two-act work, only the competitive conditions demanded that the title page be 'in one act' stands!], southern Italian ambience in the presence of the authors, genre scenes of the choirs with descriptions of the scent of oranges or church bells. But otherwise: late blossoming of bel canto in Mascagni, leitmotifs and diverse orchestral effects in Leoncavallo, dominance of the church and the narrow-minded morality almost like Garcia Lorca here and full life with desire for distraction there.
Subject to change.
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