conductor Nicola Luisotti

production

Sir David McVicar

set designer Rae Smith

costume designer Moritz Junge

lighting designer

Paule Constable

choreographer Andrew George

revival stage director Louisa Muller

RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO

PIETRO MASCAGNI

AND

pagliacci

cavalleria rusticana

general manager

Peter Gelb

music director designate

Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Cavalleria Rusticana Opera in one actLibretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, based on a story and play by Giovanni Verga

Pagliacci Opera in a prologue and two actsLibretto by the composer

Saturday, January 13, 2018 12:30–3:35 pm

The productions of Cavalleria Rusticana and

Pagliacci were made possible by generous gifts

from M. Beverly and Robert G. Bartner, Mr.

and Mrs. Paul M. Montrone, and the Estate

of Anne Tallman

Major funding was received from Rolex

Additional funding was received from John J. Noffo

Kahn and Mark Addison, and Paul Underwood

The 691st Metropolitan Opera performance of

Saturday, January 13, 2018, 12:30–3:35PM

PIETRO MASCAGNI’S

cavalleria rusticana

2017–18 season

This performance is being broadcast live over The Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network, sponsored by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury homebuilder®, with generous long-term support from The Annenberg Foundation, The Neubauer Family Foundation, the Vincent A. Stabile Endowment for Broadcast Media, and contributions from listeners worldwide.

There is no Toll Brothers–Metropolitan Opera Quiz in List Hall today.

This performance is also being broadcast live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SiriusXM channel 75.

in order of vocal appearance

conductor

Nicola Luisotti

turiddu

Roberto Alagna

santuzza

Ekaterina Semenchuk

mamma lucia

Jane Bunnell

alfio

George Gagnidze

lol a

Rihab Chaieb**

peasant woman

Elizabeth Brooks

* Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

** Member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

The 733rd Metropolitan Opera performance of

Saturday, January 13, 2018, 12:30–3:35PM

RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO’S

pagliacci

2017–18 season

in order of vocal appearance

conductor

Nicola Luisotti

tonio

George Gagnidze

canio

Roberto Alagna

beppe

Andrew Bidlack

vill agers

Daniel Peretto Jeremy Little

nedda

Aleksandra Kurzak

silvio

Alessio Arduini

canio’s troupe

Andy Sapora Joshua Wynter Marty Keiser

PHOTO: KEN HOWARD / MET OPERA

� e Metropolitan Opera is pleased to salute Rolex in recognition of its generous support during the 2017–18 season.

Sonya Yoncheva in the title role of Puccini’s Tosca

2017–18 season

* Graduate of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

** Member of the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

Yamaha is the Official Piano of the Metropolitan Opera.

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Met TitlesTo activate, press the red button to the right of the screen in front of your seat and follow the instructions provided. To turn off the display, press the red button once again. If you have questions, please ask an usher at intermission.

Chorus Master Donald Palumbo Musical Preparation Donna Racik, Derrick Inouye,

Jonathan C. Kelly, and Bryan Wagorn*Assistant Stage Director Gregory KellerStage Band Conductor (Pagliacci) Gregory BuchalterPrompter Donna RacikItalian Coach Hemdi KfirChildren’s Chorus Director Anthony PiccoloVaudeville Consultant (Pagliacci) Emil WolkAssistant Costume Designer Zeb LalljeeAssistant Scenic Designer, Properties Scott LauleScenery, properties, and electrical props constructed and

painted by Metropolitan Opera Shops Cavalleria Rusticana costumes executed by Metropolitan

Opera Costume Department; Parkinson Gill, London; and Darcy Clothing Ltd., East Sussex

Pagliacci costumes executed by Metropolitan Opera Costume Department; Das Gewand GmbH, Düsseldorf; and Scafati Theatrical Tailors, New York

Wigs and Makeup executed by Metropolitan Opera Wig and Makeup Department

Animals supervised by All-Tame Animals, Inc.

This performance is made possible in part by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Before the performance begins, please switch off cell phones and other electronic devices.

Roberto Alagna as Canio in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci

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Synopsis

Cavalleria RusticanaA village in Sicily, circa 1900. At dawn on Easter Sunday, Turiddu sings in the distance of his love for Lola, wife of the carter Alfio. She and Turiddu had been a couple before he joined the army. When he returned and found her married to Alfio, he seduced Santuzza but now has abandoned her and rekindled his relationship with Lola. Later in the morning, a distraught Santuzza approaches the tavern of Mamma Lucia, Turiddu’s mother, who tells her that her son is away buying wine. But Santuzza knows that Turiddu has been seen during the night in the village. Alfio arrives with a group of men, boasting of his horses—and of Lola. He asks Mamma Lucia if she has any more of her good wine. When she says that Turiddu has gone to get more, Alfio replies that he saw him near his house that same morning. Lucia is surprised, but Santuzza tells her to keep quiet. As the villagers follow the procession to church, Santuzza stays behind and pours out her grief about Turiddu to Mamma Lucia. The old woman expresses her pity, then also leaves for Mass. Turiddu arrives in the piazza. When Santuzza confronts him about his affair with Lola, he denies her accusations. Just then, Lola passes by on her way to church. She mocks Santuzza, and Turiddu turns to follow her. Santuzza begs him to stay and implores him not to abandon her. Refusing to listen, Turiddu leaves, and Santuzza curses him. Alfio appears, late for Mass. Santuzza tells him that Lola went to church with Turiddu and reveals that she has been cheating on him. In a rage, Alfio swears to get even and rushes off, leaving behind the now conscience-stricken Santuzza.

Returning from the church, the villagers gather at Mamma Lucia’s tavern. Turiddu leads them in a drinking song, but the atmosphere becomes tense when Alfio appears. He refuses Turiddu’s offer of wine and instead challenges him to a knife fight. Turiddu admits his guilt but is determined to go through with the fight, for Santuzza’s sake as well as for his honor. The two men agree to meet outside the village. Alone with his mother, Turiddu begs her to take care of Santuzza if he doesn’t come back, then runs off to the fight. As Mamma Lucia waits anxiously, a woman runs in screaming that Turiddu has been killed.

Intermission (aT APPROXIMATELY 1:45PM)

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PagliacciPrologueTonio the clown announces that what the audience is about to see is a true story and that actors have the same joys and sorrows as other people.

Act IThe same Sicilian village, 1949. A small theatrical company has just arrived and Canio, the head of the troupe, advertises the night’s performance to the gathered crowd. One of the villagers suggests that Tonio is secretly courting Canio’s young wife, Nedda. Canio warns them all that he will not tolerate any flirting offstage—life and theater are not the same. As the crowd disperses, Nedda is left alone, disturbed by her husband’s jealousy. She looks up to the sky, envying the birds their freedom. Tonio appears and tries to force himself on Nedda, but she beats him back, and he retreats, swearing revenge. In fact, Nedda does have a lover—Silvio, a young peasant, who suddenly appears. The two reaffirm their love, and Silvio persuades Nedda to run away with him that night. Tonio, who has returned and overheard the end of their conversation, alerts Canio, but Silvio manages to slip away unrecognized. Canio violently threatens Nedda, but she refuses to reveal her lover’s name. Beppe, another member of the troupe, restrains Canio, and Tonio advises him to wait until the evening’s performance to catch the culprit. Alone, Canio gives in to his despair—he must play the clown even though his heart is breaking.

Act IIThat 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, Canio announces that the comedy is over.

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Pietro Mascagni

Cavalleria Rusticana

Premiere: Teatro Costanzi, Rome, 1890Cavalleria Rusticana is a story of passion and jealousy in a rough Sicilian village, told with the force of primal myth. The opera is based on the highly influential short story and play of the same name by Sicilian writer Giovanni Verga, which created a sensation with their straightforward-yet-evocative prose so radically different from the flowery, dense style that had been common in Italian literature. Mascagni created a musical counterpart to Verga’s achievement—his score seems a direct expression of the characters’ emotions without any comment or adornment on the part of its author. Cavalleria won first prize in a competition for one-act operas by emerging composers (Puccini was another contestant) and took the operatic world by storm at its premiere. It earned delirious praise and equally vehement antipathy and has never been out of the core repertory. Its success was crucial in launching the verismo movement in opera, inspiring other composers to turn to stories and characters from real life (and often from society’s grungier elements). The influence of verismo reached well beyond the dozen operas that can safely be categorized as the core of the genre (perhaps most famously Puccini’s La Bohème and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci). It is a strain that has also run through the neo-realist Italian cinematic masterpieces of the mid-20th century and more recently can be seen in the films of such directors as Lars von Trier. Cavalleria Rusticana, then, can be considered one of the most important operas in terms of defining the art form as a whole. But beyond any historical considerations, it remains a vital music drama as gripping in many ways as it was at its first performance. The intense characterizations and the plot with its sense of moving toward a cataclysmic ending, all of it deftly woven into an evocative setting, make it one of the most relentlessly exciting works in the repertory.

The CreatorsPietro Mascagni (1863–1945) studied at the Milan Conservatory under Amilcare Ponchielli and even shared a small apartment for a while with fellow student Giacomo Puccini. Cavalleria Rusticana made him rich and famous literally overnight, and although he was not the one-hit wonder that non-Italian critics have labeled him, his long, varied, and controversial career never quite hit the same apex again. The then-unknown librettists Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti

In Focus

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(1863–1934) and Guido Menasci (1867–1925) earned praise for their excellent work on Cavalleria Rusticana and went on to provide other libretti for Mascagni, Leoncavallo, and other composers of the day. Author Giovanni Verga (1840–1922) was born in Catania, Sicily, and used the imagery of his native land in his novels and stories. Among these, Cavalleria Rusticana was perhaps the most celebrated, packing a wallop in a mere four pages of razor-sharp prose. Verga adapted the story into a play, featuring the legendary actress Eleanora Duse, that achieved great fame and notoriety in Italy.

The SettingThe setting of Cavalleria Rusticana in the piazza of a Sicilian village is not merely picturesque. The village is, in a sense, a character in the opera and is key to its dramatic and musical weight. The place is crude, untouched by modernity, close to nature’s cycles of life and death and the primitive human rituals associated with them. It’s dirt-poor but stabilized by codes of conduct and mores so ancient that no one remembers—or questions—their original intent. The drama unfolds on Easter Sunday. Sir David McVicar’s Met production sets the action around 1900, a few years after the opera’s composition.

The MusicThe score of Cavalleria is direct, unadorned, and honest. Early critics who complained of its crassness and lack of artistry were paying it an unwitting compliment. The famous Intermezzo, often heard outside the context of the opera, summarizes its musical plan: gorgeous, melancholy melody carried by unison strings with very little harmonization. The opera opens with the tenor’s offstage serenade sung in a Sicilian dialect, performed from a distance and flowing across the empty stage, suggesting a deep connection between characters and their environment. This was a startling effect in 1890 (and the same idea appeared hardly less startling 50 years later in the musical Oklahoma!). The impassioned vocal solos in Cavalleria Rusticana used to be sung with a considerable amount of extra-musical effects, such as sobs, gasps, and shouted words, especially in Italy. This delivery is less in style now. Some artists have pointed out that the secret is to make the audience believe a word has been screamed when it was, in fact, sung. Both sopranos and mezzo-sopranos have sung the role of Santuzza: Her great aria, “Voi lo sapete,” is a stirring challenge to the singer’s musical and dramatic abilities, and her solo voice leads the impressive Easter Hymn. The tenor’s equally impassioned farewell, “Mamma, quel vino è generoso,” amounts to a suicide aria as all-encompassing as any in opera, while his confrontational duet with Santuzza becomes a clash of archetypes.

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Premiere: Teatro dal Verme, Milan, 1892Pagliacci 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 onstage 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.

The CreatorRuggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919) studied music in his native Naples and became an ardent admirer of Richard Wagner. He wrote all his own libretti, as Wagner had, and had a checkered, rather picaresque career from Cairo to Berlin. Along with several others, he contributed to the libretto of Puccini’s hit Manon Lescaut before the two composers parted ways. The most notable wedge between them came when Puccini declared that he was setting La Bohème as an opera, after Leoncavallo had already announced the same intention to the press. Both were successfully staged, and although Puccini’s has become one of the world’s most popular operas, Leoncavallo’s is still heard on occasion and has received some lasting attention. In fact, several of Leoncavallo’s other works have received ongoing acclaim in Italy, but the composer’s international reputation rests squarely on his youthful verismo hit.

Ruggero Leoncavallo

Pagliacci

In Focus CONTINUED

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The SettingPagliacci is set in a village in Calabria, in southern Italy. In the mid-19th century, traveling troupes of commedia dell’arte players, interpreting the stock characters of Harlequin, Columbine, and others, were a familiar feature of this landscape. The specified time is the Feast of the Assumption (August 15), a major holiday in Italy. The current production moves the setting to the late 1940s, creating a sense that the story is taking place in the same village as Cavalleria Rusticana, two generations later.

The MusicIn some ways, the score of Pagliacci expresses verismo ideals even more impressively than Cavalleria, most notably in the unity of each scene and the seamless transitions between individual solos. After some early scene painting (including the pretty “Bell Chorus”), there is scarcely a line of music that does not advance the swift action of the drama. The soprano’s aria, “Stridono lassù,” shows that even verismo works demand beauty of tone. Likewise, Harlequin’s serenade requires elegant phrasing, especially since it is delivered within the framework of a play-within-the-opera. Tonio’s opening Prologue, “Si può?,” a daunting solo traditionally delivered in front of the curtain, is a magnificent tour de force for the baritone (and a superb dramatic touch). There is, as in Cavalleria, a powerful orchestral intermezzo, but Pagliacci is most noted for its Act I climax, the tenor aria “Vesti la giubba,” one of the world’s most familiar melodies. It was, in Caruso’s rendition, the recording industry’s first million-seller.

Met HistoryCavalleria Rusticana was first performed by the Met on tour in Chicago in December 1891, paired with Act I of La Traviata. Pagliacci followed in December 1893 at the opera house in New York, in a double bill with Orfeo ed Euridice. The Met was the first opera company to present Cav/Pag together, on December 22, 1893, and this combination soon became standard practice around the world, but occasional pairings with other operas were still common into the early 20th century. Cavalleria and Pagliacci individually shared the Met stage with such diverse works as Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Don Pasquale, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Fille du Régiment, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, La Bohème, and even Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Golden Cockerel. An unlikely double bill of Pagliacci and Hansel and Gretel was especially popular, with almost 100 performances between 1906 and 1938. More recently, a pairing of Il Tabarro and Pagliacci—with Luciano Pavarotti as Canio and Teresa Stratas as Nedda—opened the 1994–95 season.

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Among the notable early interpreters of the leading roles were Emma Eames, Emma Calvé, Johanna Gadski, Olive Fremstad, Emmy Destinn, and Rosa Ponselle (Santuzza); Francesco Tamagno and Enrico Caruso (Turiddu); Nellie Melba, Destinn, Lucrezia Bori, Claudia Muzio, and Queena Mario (Nedda); Caruso—more than 100 performances—and Giovanni Martinelli (Canio); and Pasquale Amato (Tonio). A new production in 1951 starred Zinka Milanov and Richard Tucker in Cavalleria and Delia Rigal, Ramón Vinay, and Leonard Warren in Pagliacci. Another new staging in 1958, with Lucine Amara as Nedda, Mario Del Monaco as Canio, and Milanov and Warren reprising their roles, followed. The next new production, directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli, premiered in 1970, with Leonard Bernstein conducting Grace Bumbry and Franco Corelli in Cavalleria and Fausto Cleva conducting Amara, Tucker, and Sherrill Milnes in Pagliacci. Among the many other artists who have appeared in the two operas since the late 1950s are Giulietta Simionato, Eileen Farrell, Fiorenza Cossotto, and Tatiana Troyanos (Santuzza); Teresa Stratas and Diana Soviero (Nedda); Jon Vickers, James McCracken, and Giuseppe Giacomini (Canio); and Cornell MacNeil and Juan Pons (Tonio). Tenors who have faced the challenge of taking on both leading roles in a single performance include Plácido Domingo, Roberto Alagna, and José Cura. The current production, by Sir David McVicar, opened in April 2015 with Marcelo Álvarez singing Turiddu and Canio, Eva-Maria Westbroek as Santuzza, Patricia Racette as Nedda, and George Gagnizde as Alfio and Tonio.

In Focus CONTINUED

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Program Note

Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci—today, we cannot think of one without the other. The parallels between Cav and Pag, as the two works are lovingly called, are many, but

the differences are even more striking. And it is these differences that make them such a complementary and satisfying pair onstage.

The two operas were written just two years apart by young Italian composers who were living in extreme poverty and desperately needed a success. Catapulting their creators into great celebrity and wealth, they then overshadowed Mascagni and Leoncavallo’s other operatic products for the remainder of their lengthy and prolific careers. Both set in traditional Southern Italian villages, they brought the verismo genre, already well established in literature—in which humble people with vividly untamed and un-prettified emotions, rather than princes and gods, were featured—to life on the operatic stage. Soon, other composers eagerly followed in their wake, notably Giordano, Puccini, Cilèa, Zandonai, and, in France, Massenet and Gustave Charpentier.

Premiered in 1890, Cavalleria Rusticana came first and set the operatic verismo movement in motion. Born and raised in the busy Tuscan port of Livorno, Mascagni studied at its conservatory before moving on to the more prestigious Milan Conservatory, where he shared rooms with and became a lifelong friend of his fellow Tuscan Giacomo Puccini, despite the pressures of their professional rivalries. Unable to make his living as a musician in the North, he moved to the small city of Cerignola in Puglia to serve as its music director. This sojourn did not improve his financial status, but it did steep him in the southern Italian culture; after Cavalleria, he often returned there to retreat from his celebrity and compose.

Nevertheless, Mascagni knew he’d reached a dead end in Puglia. “I wanted to get out of Cerignola. … I was totally aware that for my artistic aspirations … a little provincial spot like Cerignola was the kiss of death,” he later remembered. The opportunity came in 1888 when he read in the newspaper about a lucrative competition being run by Milan’s ambitious Casa Sonzogno publishing firm for a one-act opera, the winner of which would receive a prominent theatrical production.

In order to enter, Mascagni needed a suitable libretto in a hurry. He remembered being impressed by the stage adaptation he had seen in 1884 of Giovanni Verga’s already classic verismo short story Cavalleria Rusticana, set in Sicily (which Mascagni had never visited). Often quoting directly from Verga’s play, Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci quickly adapted it into a libretto. With only four months then remaining until the contest’s 1889 submission deadline, Mascagni drafted and scored his opera.

Three competition finalists were chosen to present their scores to the distinguished jury, but from the beginning, there was no doubt that Mascagni’s

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MOZ ART

LE NOZZE DI FIGARO

DEC 6, 9 eve, 12, 15, 19, 23 mat, 29 JAN 4, 10, 13 eve, 19

A superb cast—including Ailyn Pérez, Nadine Sierra, Isabel Leonard (pictured), Mariusz Kwiecien, and Ildar Abdrazakov (pictured)—stars in Mozart’s comic yet profound masterpiece of love and forgiveness. Acclaimed maestro Harry Bicket conducts.

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was the runaway winner. In perhaps the most tumultuously well-received premiere in Italian opera history, it debuted at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on May 17, 1890. It made Mascagni, only 26 years old, an overnight celebrity and—in a time when Verdi was retiring and Puccini had not yet proven his worth—the great hope of Italian opera. Within three years, it had received 185 productions in 66 cities in Italy and 62 other cities in Europe and the United States.

Meanwhile, in Milan, Ruggero Leoncavallo paid close attention to Cavalleria’s enormous success. Six-and-a-half years older than Mascagni and a native of Naples, he was virtually as interested in literature as he was in music. After studies at the Naples Conservatory, he diligently attended lectures by the Nobel Prize–winning poet Giosuè Carducci at the University of Bologna. More cosmopolitan than Mascagni, he then tried to make a living in both Egypt and Paris, where he became a protégé of the famous French baritone Victor Maurel, who created roles in both of Verdi’s final masterworks—Iago in Otello and the title character of Falstaff. But by the early 1890s, he was back in Italy and near starvation.

Desperate for his own ticket out of poverty, Leoncavallo deliberately patterned his Pagliacci after Cavalleria and the new verismo craze. And he had the advantage that with his significant literary skills, he could serve as his own librettist. He drew on several sources for the opera: Catulle Mendès’s recent French play Le Femme de Tabarin, about an actor who kills his wife on stage, and Manuel Tamayo y Baus’s 17th-century Spanish play Un Drama Nuevo. He was also inspired by a real-life memory from his childhood: a savage, jealousy-fueled murder in his hometown that was tried by his magistrate father (to which Leoncavallo makes a poignant reference in Tonio’s Prologue).

Casa Sonzogno also arranged for Pagliacci’s premiere at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme under the baton of Arturo Toscanini on May 21, 1892, almost two years to the day after Cavalleria exploded onto the scene. Though it was also a success with its initial audiences, it was a bit slower to fully take off, finally achieving widespread awareness and acclaim after its premiere in Vienna that September. On the strength of Pagliacci, the now-35-year-old composer became perhaps an even bigger celebrity in Austria and Germany than he was in Italy—a situation that would later cause severe problems for him during World War I.

Since Leoncavallo modeled Pagliacci after Cavalleria, the surface similarities between them are extensive. They both take place in villages in Southern Italy on religious holidays, emphasizing the traditional, deeply Roman Catholic culture of those towns: Easter Sunday in Cavalleria and the August 15th Feast of the Assumption of Mary in Pagliacci. Both follow the classical dramatic principle of setting the action within a single 24-hour period; Cavalleria intensifies that temporal compression by unfolding in exactly the same 70 minutes during which the audience is watching it, while the Intermezzo in Pagliacci may possibly mark the elapse of an hour or so. Each involves a cuckolded husband killing his

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PUCCINI

TOSCADEC 31 JAN 3, 6 eve, 9, 12, 15, 18, 23, 27 mat

The Met’s “smashing new production” is “a grand triumph” (Huffington Post), led by the exciting pairing of Sonya Yoncheva and Vittorio Grigolo as the “youthful, ardent, and innocent” lovers, their “duets electric, their kisses hot and numerous” (Wall Street Journal). Željko Lucic is Scarpia, and Emmanuel Villaume conducts.

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rival in revenge. There are numerous corresponding musical numbers between them, although their emotional and artistic approaches are seldom the same. And both end with shockingly brutal speed.

Far more interesting to examine are the differences between these operas. In general, one could say that, in keeping with each composer’s particular strengths, Cavalleria is more music-driven while Pagliacci is more story-driven. Mascagni arguably could be ranked with Bellini and Puccini as among the most melodically gifted of the Italian opera composers, and he created here a verismo opera with strong bel canto roots. Ranging from pure Italianate legato lyricism, as in Turiddu’s offstage “Siciliana” in the prelude, to an outpouring of passionate drama, as in Santuzza and Turiddu’s catastrophic duet, his melodies are typically longer and more arching. Leoncavallo, on the other hand, gives us shorter, more intense melodic bursts—as in Canio’s “Vesti la giubba”—that are closely molded to the words, which he had written himself. His approach is verismo with a sharper, more modern edge, and his characters are drawn with more individual psychological detail than Mascagni’s.

Though both end abruptly, the pacing of these operas is actually quite different. Cavalleria begins more slowly, with Mascagni devoting considerable time to setting the atmosphere of the village, often through gentle, lyrical music. Pagliacci starts more briskly with Tonio’s Prologue, and the pace relaxes only with the beautiful Nedda-Silvio duet and later with the play-within-a-play. Though the chorus plays a very important role in both operas, Mascagni gives it much more musical prominence, especially with his extended Easter Hymn. As Mascagni biographer Alan Mallach writes: “In Cavalleria, the characters are less individuals than figures in a defining social landscape. … They are, above all, a part of a timeless community, and their roles are defined by rules ruthlessly enforced by that community, which … in many respects is the true protagonist of the opera. Mascagni brings the community alive through his use of the chorus.” Mascagni also emphasizes his orchestra as another communal unit. Leoncavallo’s characters are more defined individuals—even his chorus members, as we see as they fight over their seats before the commedia dell’arte play.

A look at two analogous sections that occur in both operas—the Prelude and Prologue, which each include orchestral music and a solo for one of the major characters—profoundly reveals the differences in the musical and dramatic styles of these two composers. Playing predominantly a scene-setting role, Mascagni’s generally soft and lyrical orchestral music is broken by the “Siciliana,” Turiddu’s offstage serenade to Lola. This gorgeous combination of bel canto singing with Sicilian folk flavor is the only piece that actually uses Sicilian dialect (Mascagni adapted a separate Sicilian poem for it) and was added after the rest of the score was finished. With his brash theme of the clowns, Leoncavallo launches us right into the drama and then introduces Tonio, the Iago-like villain

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DONIZET TI

L’ELISIR D’AMOREJAN 16, 20 eve, 24, 27 eve, 31 FEB 3 eve, 7, 10 mat, 14, 17 eve

Soprano Pretty Yende sings her first Adina at the Met, alongside tenor Matthew Polenzani (pictured) as the lovelorn Nemorino, in Donizetti’s heartfelt comedy. Domingo Hindoyan makes his Met debut conducting Bartlett Sher’s delightful production.

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he created specifically for Victor Maurel. Here, however, Tonio represents Leoncavallo himself more than the role he will play in the opera. One of the most touchingly beautiful moments in his Prologue is the sequence beginning “Un nido di memoria” (“A nest of memory”), in which Tonio refers to Leoncavallo’s real-life tragic memory from his childhood. But this Prologue, unlike Mascagni’s

“Siciliana,” is not a musically driven aria but a dramatic monologue of sharp psychological acuity.

Despite the celebrity of Cav and Pag, Mascagni and Leoncavallo did not continue to write verismo operas. Each had more ambitious goals in mind for his operatic legacy, but neither ever managed to create works to rival or surpass his youthful success. Nevertheless, for one magical moment in their careers, they hit all the right notes—and achieved immortality.

—Janet E. Bedell

Janet E. Bedell is a frequent program annotator for Carnegie Hall, specializing in vocal repertoire, and for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and many other institutions.

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Program Note CONTINUED

VERDI

IL TROVATOREJAN 22, 26, 30 FEB 3 mat, 6, 9, 12, 15

Marco Armiliato leads Verdi’s fiery masterpiece of love and vengeance, in Sir David McVicar’s hot-blooded production. The all-star cast includes Maria Agresta, Anita Rachvelishvili, Yonghoon Lee (pictured), and Quinn Kelsey.

Tickets from $25

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MARTY SOHL / MET OPERA

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46E

The Cast

this season Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at the Met, Turandot and La Traviata at San Francisco Opera, La Bohème and Falstaff at Covent Garden, Aida in Madrid, and Tosca in Valencia.met appearances La Traviata, La Fanciulla del West, La Bohème, and Tosca (debut, 2006).career highlights He is in his final season as music director of San Francisco Opera, a position he has held since 2009, and has conducted more than 40 operas and concerts with the company since his debut in 2005, including Aida, Andrea Chénier, Don Carlo, Lucia di Lammermoor, Luisa Miller, and the world premiere of Marco Tutino’s La Ciociara. He was music director of Naples’s Teatro di San Carlo from 2012 to 2014 and principal guest conductor of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra from 2009 to 2012. Recent performances include Pagliacci in Turin; Rigoletto at the Paris Opera and in Madrid; Il Trittico, La Traviata, and Madama Butterfly at Covent Garden; Nabucco in Valencia; and Il Trovatore in Naples. He has also led performances at La Scala, the Vienna State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, LA Opera, Seattle Opera, and in Genoa, Venice, Bologna, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Dresden, and Hamburg.

this season Nedda in Pagliacci at the Met, Alice Ford in Falstaff and Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito at the Paris Opera, Desdemona in Otello and Liù in Turandot at the Vienna State Opera, and Desdemona in Hamburg.met appearances Adina in L’Elisir d’Amore, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Gilda in Rigoletto, Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann (debut, 2004).career highlights Recent performances include Olympia/Antonia/Giulietta/Stella in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Rachel in Halévy’s La Juive at the Bavarian State Opera; Liù, Adina, and the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden; Micaëla in Carmen at the Paris Opera; Mimì in La Bohème and Adina at Staatsoper Berlin; Norina in Don Pasquale and Nedda in Zurich; and Mimì in Genoa. She has also sung Gilda at the Polish National Opera, Vienna State Opera, Covent Garden, and La Scala; Adina at the Paris Opera; the title role of Maria Stuarda in Paris; Fiorilla in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia at Covent Garden; Violetta in La Traviata at Deutsche Oper Berlin; and Giulietta in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi in concert in Geneva and Baden-Baden.

Nicola Luisotticonductor (viareggio, italy)

Aleksandra Kurzaksoprano (brzeg dolny, poland)

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Now Available: Anna Netrebko in Eugene Onegin (2017)

46G

The Cast CONTINUED

this season Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio in Pagliacci at the Met, Radamès in Aida in Gstaad, Switzerland; the Condemned Man in David Alagna’s Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné in Marseilles; Maurizio in Adriana Lecouvreur in Monte Carlo; the title role of Otello, Calàf in Turandot, and Samson in Samson et Dalila at the Vienna State Opera; Samson in Paris; Manrico in Il Trovatore at the Paris Opera; and the title role of Lohengrin at the Bayreuth Festival.met appearances Since his 1996 debut as Rodolfo in La Bohème, he has sung 125 performances of 16 roles, including the title role of Cyrano de Bergerac, Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Des Grieux in Manon Lescaut, Don José in Carmen, and Cavaradossi in Tosca.career highlights Recent performance include Nemorino in L’Elisir d’Amore and Calàf at Covent Garden, Don José at the Paris Opera, Manrico at the Vienna State Opera, Eléazar in Halévy’s La Juive at the Bavarian State Opera, Don José and Nemorino at Deutsche Oper Berlin, and Turiddu and Canio in Zurich. He has also appeared at La Scala, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Salzburg Festival, and in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Orange, and Avignon.

Roberto Alagnatenor (clichy-sous-bois, france)

this season Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana and Verdi’s Requiem at the Met, Amneris in Aida at Washington National Opera and in Madrid and Tokyo, Azucena in Il Trovatore at the Paris Opera, and the Princess de Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur in Baden-Baden. met appearances Marina in Boris Godunov, Olga in Eugene Onegin, Pauline in The Queen of Spades, and Sonya in War and Peace (debut, 2002).career highlights She appears regularly at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, where her roles have included Amneris, the Princess de Bouillon, Charlotte in Werther, Dalila in Samson et Dalila, Fricka in Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Preziosilla in La Forza del Destino, Azucena, and Didon in Les Troyens, among others. Recent performances include Amneris at the Salzburg Festival and San Francisco Opera, Princess Eboli in Don Carlo at Covent Garden and La Scala, Spring Beauty in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Snow Maiden at the Paris Opera, Azucena in Rome and at Covent Garden and the Paris Opera, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth at LA Opera and in Valencia, Fricka in Das Rheingold in concert at the Edinburgh International Festival, Mistress Quickly in Falstaff in concert at the Verbier Festival, and Preziosilla in Salerno.

Ekaterina Semenchukmezzo-soprano (minsk, belarus)

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46H

The Cast CONTINUED

this season Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana and Tonio in Pagliacci at the Met and in Hamburg and Rome, Amonasro in Aida in Madrid and at La Scala, and Barnaba in La Gioconda at Deutsche Oper Berlin.met appearances Amonasro, the title role of Rigoletto (debut, 2009), Scarpia in Tosca, the title role in Macbeth, and Shaklovity in Khovanshchina.career highlights Recent performances include Shaklovity in concert at the BBC Proms; the title role of Nabucco in Verona; Carlo Gérard in Andrea Chénier, Scarpia, and Rigoletto at Deutsche Oper Berlin; Amonasro in Tblisi and at the Paris Opera; and Amonasro and Carlo Gérard at San Francisco Opera. He has also sung the title role in Falstaff in Tokyo; Tonio at LA Opera; Scarpia at the Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera; Iago in Otello in Athens and Hamburg; Nabucco in Orange and Palermo; the title role of Simon Boccanegra in Hamburg, Madrid, and at the Bavarian State Opera; Alfio at the Vienna State Opera and in Barcelona; Germont in La Traviata at La Scala and in Verona; and Rigoletto at La Scala, LA Opera, and in Aix-en-Provence, Tokyo, Weimar, and Parma.

this season Silvio in Pagliacci at the Met; Marcello in La Bohème at Covent Garden; Guglielmo in Così fan tutte in Lille; Belcore in L’Elisir d’Amore, Dandini in La Cenerentola, and Marcello at the Vienna State Opera; Schaunard in La Bohème and Ramiro in Ravel’s L’Heure Espagnole at the Paris Opera; and Mercurio in Cavalli’s La Calisto at the Bavarian State Opera.met appearances Marcello and Schaunard (debut, 2014).career highlights Recent performances include Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia and Dandini at the Paris Opera, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte in Florence, Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale and Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro and Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Vienna State Opera, Guglielmo at Covent Garden, and Masetto in Don Giovanni and Guglielmo at the Salzburg Festival. He has also sung Sharpless in Madama Butterfly and Schaunard in Rome, Silvio in Salzburg, the title role of Don Giovanni and Guglielmo in Venice, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro in Muscat, Guglielmo at the Bavarian State Opera, Leporello in Don Giovanni at the Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera, Schaunard at Covent Garden, and Silvano in Un Ballo in Maschera at La Scala.

George Gagnidzebaritone (tbilisi, georgia)

Alessio Arduinibaritone (desenzano, italy)