This disc joins the
rapidly expanding Naxos ‘Opera Explained’
series written by Thomson Smillie and
narrated by David Timson. It starts
(tr. 1) with a brief extract from Canio’s
agonised Vesti la giubba, perhaps
the best known tenor aria until Pavarotti
and Nessun dorma became the tenorial
pot boiler. The relationship of Pagliacci
with its heavenly twin, as Mascagni’s
Cavalleria Rusticana is often
called, is examined; likewise the frequently
made claim that Leoncavallo’s creation
is musically and dramatically the more
cohesive work. That cohesion can be
attributed to the fact that Leoncavallo,
with his skills as a student of literature,
wrote his own libretto. He had been
a student of literature at the University
of Bologna, the oldest in the world,
when impressed by the success of Cavalleria
Rusticana, he broke off his studies
to write Pagliacci (tr. 2). Leoncavallo’s
earlier efforts at composition had not
been successful. However, Pagliacci
was to make him famous, albeit like
Mascagni with Cavalleria Rusticana
he was never able to repeat the
success. It is said that Leoncavallo
derived the basis of the plot from a
case his father, a judge, heard in court.
Rather than examine
the relationship of Pagliacci with
the verismo movement, the narrative
goes into a detailed consideration of
the Commedia dell’arte tradition (tr.3).
This analysis involves the examination
of the stock characters of that tradition
such as Pantalon, Harlequin, the lover
and the young wife with those in Pagliacci.
Interestingly, this analysis is extended
into operas such as Don Pasquale,
The Barber of Seville and L’Elisir
d’amore amongst others. Each suggestion
of a link is appropriately illustrated
by a musical extract (trs. 4-5). The
structure of Pagliacci in the
concept of a play within a play is touched
upon with reference to Shakespeare’s
Midsummer Nights Dream and Hamlet
(tr. 6). The remainder of the disc
(trs. 7-15) takes the listener through
the intricacies of the plot, the nature
of the characters, their relationship
and the unfolding of the tragedy. This
is done in the clear manner that we
have come to expect from this series.
The explanations are illustrated with
relevant and appropriate musical extracts
from the well recorded and performed
Naxos issue detailed above. The booklet
gives a synopsis of the opera and a
brief, broad-brush, essay by Thomson
Smillie on the history of opera and
the place of Pagliacci within
it.
There is not the detailed
scholarship in the introduction to Pagliacci
that I found, and enjoyed, in the
recent issue devoted to Gluck’s
Orfeo ed Euridice. However, the
greater cogency is perhaps appropriates
to this most taut of opera plots. Personally,
I would have liked a diversion in the
narrative as to the place of Pagliacci
and Cavalleria Rusticana in
the verismo movement. That apart this
is an excellent introduction to one
of the most popular and well constructed
works in the operatic repertoire.
Robert J Farr
See also
review by John Leeman
Music illustrations taken from Naxos 8.660021
featuring the Slovak Philharmonic Choir, Slovak
Radio Symphony Orchestra/Alexander Rahbari. with:
Canio, Nicola Martinucci (ten); Nedda, Miriam
Gauci (sop); Tonio, Eduard Tumagian (bar); Silvio,
Boje Skovhus (bar) 