Programme Booklet »Cavalleria rusticana / Pagliacci«

PIETRO M ASCAGNI

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA PAGLIACCI RU G G E RO L E O N C AVA L L O

CONTENTS

P.

6

SYNOPSIS P.

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DEATH COMES QUICKLY IN VERISMO JENDRIK SPRINGER IN AN INTERVIEW P.

16

THE RISE AND FALL OF VERISMO ERNST KRAUSE P.

22

MASCAGNI & LEONCAVALLO MARCEL PRAWY

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26

WITH PLAYFUL JOY DIANA KIENAST P.

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PREMIÈRES, TRUE AND FAUX ANDREAS LÁNG P.

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EXPEC­TATIONS EXCEEDED BY REALITY PIETRO MASCAGNI P.

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A VENTITRÈ ORE! ANN-CHRISTINE MECKE P.

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IMPRINT

PIETRO M ASCAGNI

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA MELODRAMMA in one act Libretto GIOVANNI TARGIONI-TOZZETTI & GUIDO MENASCI

ORCHESTRA

STAGE MUSIC

2 piccolos / 2 flutes 2 oboes / 2 clarinets 2 bassoons / 4 horns 2 trumpets / 3 trombones tuba / timpani percussion organ / harp violin I / violin II viola / cello / double bass percussion / organ / harps

AUTOGRAPH Music Library of Stanford University WORLD PREMIÈRE 17 MAY 1890 Teatro Costanzi, Rome PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 20 MAR 1891 Vienna Court Opera DURATION 1 H 15 MIN

RU G G E RO L E O N C AVA L L O

PAGLIACCI DRAMMA with a prologue and two acts Libretto RUGGERO LEONCAVALLO

ORCHESTRA

STAGE MUSIC

3 flutes / 2 oboes cor anglais 2 clarinets / bass clarinet 3 bassoons / 4 horns 3 trumpets / 3 trombones tuba / timpani percussion / 2 harps violin I / violin II viola / cello / double bass oboe / trumpet percussion / violin

AUTOGRAPH

Library of Congress Washington

WORLD PREMIÈRE 21 MAY 1892 Teatro dal Verme, Milan PREMIÈRE AT THE HOUSE ON THE RING 19 NOV 1893 Vienna Court Opera DURATION 1 H 15 MIN

C AVA L L E R I A RU S T IC A N A

SYNOPSIS INTRODUCTION Before Turiddu was called to military service, he got engaged to Lola. When he returned home from the army, he was disappointed to find that while he was gone Lola had married the wealthy Alfio. Turiddu tries to forget his sorrows with Santuzza…

EASTER MORNING IN A VILLAGE IN SICILY Turiddu serenades Lola, with whom he has re-established contact. The village inhabitants are happy because it is spring.

Driven by a feeling of anxiety, Santuzza looks for Turiddu at his mother Lucia’s tavern on the village square.

Alfio, who was away on business, returns and sings about his wife’s fidelity. Easter bells summon the villagers to early morning Mass.

Santuzza, feeling that she is wicked due to her relationship with Turiddu, remains outside the church. She suspects that Turiddu is unfaithful and confides her sorrows to his mother.

He is taken to task, but he resorts to excuses. However, as Lola passes by, he forgets Santuzza and her accusations, pushes her away and runs after Lola. Santuzza curses him. Deeply wounded and with hurt pride, she reveals to Alfio the adulterous relationship his wife has with Turiddu. In a rage, Alfio swears to seek revenge. Only now does Santuzza realise with despair what a tragic state of affairs she has caused.

INTERMEZZO SINFONICO When the church service is over, Turiddu invites everyone to join him in a traditional drink. He also offers Alfio a cup. Alfio refuses rudely. Turiddu realises that Alfio knows about the adultery. They challenge each other to a duel according to Sicilian ritual.

Fear of death rises in Turiddu and he begs his mother for her blessing. He asks her to protect Santuzza. Then he goes to the agreed upon meeting place for the duel.

The cry, “Turiddu has been murdered” ends the tragedy.

Previous pages: KS JOSÉ CURA as CANIO SCENE

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KS ELĪNA GARANČA as SANTUZZA

PAGLI ACCI

SYNOPSIS PROLOGUE Tonio, an actor who plays the part of Taddeo in the comedy, outlines the play in the prologue speaking, as it were, for the playwright: for once, the author would like to be a painter whose subject is real life even if he is using actors to do so. However, we should not dwell on the dancing actors, but rather submerge ourselves into the souls of the people.

ACT 1 The story is set on the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven, August 15.

Canio’s troupe of actors enters, warmly welcomed by the villagers. In addition to Nedda, the wife of the manager (in the play she is Colombina), Beppe (in the play Arlecchino) and Tonio are members of the theater group. Canio (Pagliaccio in the play) announces a performance for tonight. When Tonio tries to help Nedda out of the wagon, Canio pushes him away jealously. The actors are invited to have a drink. Someone jokes that Tonio is only too happy to stay behind so that he can have a rendezvous with Nedda. Canio reacts violently. In plays he may take the part of a clumsy, betrayed husband, but in real life he would never accept infidelity.

Bells summon the villagers to evening church services.

Nedda is upset by Canio’s thinly disguised threats. She feels confined by this jealousy and would like to escape her invisible cage so that she could be as free as a bird.

Tonio eavesdropped on her. He wants to force his love on Nedda; he is, however, scornfully rejected.

Silvio, a young farmer, appears. Nedda has fallen in love with him. He entreats her to leave Canio and run away with him tonight. At first she hesitates, but then agrees without suspecting that Tonio has heard the two of them talking and hastily summoned Canio out of the nearby tavern. Just as Nedda is saying goodbye to her lover, Canio bursts on the scene raging mad with jealousy. Silvio manages to get away without being recognised. Now Canio’s rage is turned against Nedda.

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SYNOPSIS

He threatens her with his knife and demands that Nedda reveals her friend’s name. She remains silent. Beppe is able to get the knife away from Canio and, thus, the worst is avoided. What is more, it is almost time for the people to arrive for the performance. With difficulty Canio calms himself and gets ready for the play.

INTERMEZZO — ACT 2 Shortly before the comedy begins: Tonio beats on a large drum; the audience, including Silvio, is waiting with anticipation.

Nedda, who is collecting money, warns her lover about Canio’s jealousy.

The play about Columbina, Arlecchino, Taddeo and Pagliaccio begins. When Nedda in her role as Colombina uses the same words to say goodbye to the serenading Arlecchino as she spoke to Silvio, Canio gets the play and real life all mixed up. Beside himself with jealousy, he demands on the public stage to know the name of Nedda’s lover. Colombina/Nedda tries to resume the play, but Canio threatens all the more. Even the audience begins to suspect that something over and above the play is going on.

When Nedda remains stubbornly silent, Pagliaccio/Canio stabs her and kills her. Her cries for help, directed at Silvio, result in Canio turning to the youth who is hurrying to her side and kills him as well. “La commedia è finita.” The play is over.

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OLIVER LÁNG IN AN INTERVIEW WITH JENDRIK SPRINGER

DEATH COMES QUICKLY IN VERISMO ol

Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci are mostly presented as a double bill. While the works are strongly related with each other by their subject matter, they aren’t really siblings, as there are distinguishing features. Perhaps we could start by outlining the relationship? js I’m constantly surprised in this context by the fact that Mascagni wrote the first piece, Cavalleria rusticana, while Leoncavallo actually wanted to pair it some two years later with another piece in a similar vein, Pagliacci.

Or was actually meant to, because the Sonzogno publishers were undoubtedly a driving force behind the Pagliacci project. So it isn’t surprising that the situation of pairing this successor resulted in strong correspondences and relationships in formal terms. Let me give just two examples. The prelude to the two operas isn’t just instrumental. In

Cavalleria rusticana, it is interrupted by Turiddu’s siciliana, in Pagliacci there’s Tonio’s prologue, which belongs to the prelude because it’s sung behind the closed curtain. An instrumental intermezzo is inserted in the middle of both operas before the final climax. So, the formal parallels are evident. ol What obviously connects the two works is their short nature.

There were one-act operas earlier, but they were more on comedic lines. Here we have two short tragic operas. How does the short span of time affect the composition of the material? js The shortness was clearly a result of the original. The starting point for Cavalleria rusticana was a short story

by Giovanni Verga. The driven precision of the short story has flowed into the opera through the dramatisation of the material. You feel it has been reduced to its essential elements. We must not

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DEATH COMES QUICKLY IN VERISMO

forget, of course, that the competition Mascagni wrote his opera for required a one-acter. All this affected its internal structure, the individual numbers are shorter and very tight. Everything happens very quickly, moving directly to the climax. Even though Mascagni composed a very broad prelude and opening chorus, the climaxes happen quickly. ol Going beyond the form, Leoncavallo is generally regarded as the “more intellectual” composer, if you like to speak in these terms, while Mascagni is seen as the “earthier” one. js These labels, which are naturally always controversial in their brevity, express something which is very understandable when you look at the score.

In its sonorities, Cavalleria rusticana often has something – particularly the way the brass are used, which is unpolished, almost rough – I would say rustic.

The instrumentation sometimes seems almost clumsy, although I can’t decide whether this was deliberate, or whether it simply “happened” to Mascagni, who was a very young composer at the time, with little experience. Leoncavallo was clearly the more practised, more skilful, and able to orchestrate more subtly. ol Possibly Mascagni tried to musically imitate the postcard nature of the literary original, which can be very harsh in the language taken over? js That’s certainly a possibility. But I’d like to give an example which strikes me at every performance, in the duet between Santuzza and Alfio. Santuzza reveals Alfio’s wife Lola’s betrayal, and after this devastating news – Santuzza’s “your wife has taken him from me”, the orchestra sounds almost reflective. This

is directly followed by Alfio’s response, a musically unexpected dramatic forte, as a rare and direct contrast. Naturally, you can roll that up in the key words “postcard” or “unvarnished”, but I’m not sure that Mascagni would have chosen a different solution for this transition later, with more experience. On the other hand, Leoncavallo creates more fluent transitions, although there are still edgy moments, even brutal, they are more organically integrated in compositional terms. ol You said that Leoncavallo has a more skilful hand in orchestration. js There are more directions in the score and more nuanced ones than with his colleague Mascagni. For example, Leoncavallo repeatedly divides the violins, calls for flageolet effects from the strings, along with other striking sounds and ways of playing.

He also looks after small nuances, and I can give an example of this: Nedda’s bird aria is accompanied by two interweaving harps, and Leoncavallo adds complex figures in the divided strings, with four solo violins playing sustained chords an octave higher. There is a clear French influence on the sonority here.

But that doesn’t mean we should see Mascagni as a poor composer, Leoncavallo was simply more skilful. ol Does the use of the available instruments also change? js Verdi customarily used trombones and trumpets to set the tempo, rather than chords or rhythmic pulses. Now, they are being used more as melodic instruments. This has a result which should not be underestimated, as the vocal line is now doubled by a brass instrument rather than the former strings or woodwind. So we’re hearing a

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JENDRIK SPRINGER IN AN INTERVIEW

soprano and a trumpet, or a baritone and a trombone. Now, these are combinations which were (and to some extent still are) described as absurd in teaching orchestration, as there’s a great risk that the instrument will overwhelm the singer. The combination can produce an earthier effect, but it also means that the singer needs more volume. This was out of the question in bel canto, where tenors for example were supposed to sing high notes in a type of supported falsetto. Now, it takes greater penetration, and Italian opera took a direction which was already familiar from Wagner. ol A last comment on the aspect of composition. Mascagni later recalled that he was praised explicitly for his contrapuntal work. Is that actually true, or is it a later embellished memory for Mascagni? js I can only think of one place where such praise would be justified, which is the choral entry in Alfio’s entrance aria. Otherwise, everything is clearly homophonic, not contrapuntal, and based on the upper parts. ol Perhaps Mascagni wanted to use this memory to counter the general view that Cavalleria rusticana was a piece he had written down unusually quickly? js Quite possibly! Because however brilliant Cavalleria rusticana may be, the opera isn’t an outstanding piece of contrapuntal writing. ol We talked about Verdi earlier.

If we try to place Mascagni and Leon­c avallo in the tradition, where do they stand? Are they Verdi’s successors, or did they really strike out in a new direction? js I would say very clearly that both operas are unambiguously succes-

sors to Verdi. Starting with the material, Verdi had already begun to bring marginal groups onto the stage, a Violetta in La traviata, and also the title figure in Rigoletto, Mascagni and Leoncavallo do go a step further. While La traviata still takes place in upper middle class and aristocratic society, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci have their emphases very much elsewhere.

Musically, they make advances which cross previous borders, but they are very clearly coming from the world of Italian opera, from bel canto. ol So, they cross borders by allowing use of realistic natural sounds, screaming? js Remember that Verdi wrote in a letter on La traviata that Violetta should not cough all through act Three. He wasn’t at home with such realism. In verismo by contrast, cries, screams and realism are explicitly called for. Even beside these moments, there are major musical changes, as the voices are denied every form of deliberate virtuosity.

And that means that a singer who has to play the role and presents it with perfected technical skills is out of the question for the verismo enthusiasts. There is no longer any possibility for inserting a cadenza, coloratura passage or variation with brilliant virtuosity. Everything is about expression, and the expression is there to create the stage character involved. We talked about the volume of the voice, and the volume of the orchestra grows along with it. Conductors have to watch closely that the orchestra doesn’t get too loud. Then there’s a third aspect involved in the realistic overall expression of verismo. Even in Rigoletto, Gilda is allowed to die while singing for ten minutes. This was also ended. Death comes quickly in verismo.

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DEATH COMES QUICKLY IN VERISMO

ol

The exception which proves the rule could be Adriana Lecouvreur, the title figure takes quite a while dying over the poisoned flowers. js Yes, that’s definitely the exception.

If we look at Tosca and Andrea Chénier, there’s a quick death. As the great musicologist Ulrich Schreiber put it, “Dramatic passion has priority over lyrical exaggeration in death as well.” ol And harmonically? Are we still in a Verdian environment? js Here again, we’re going beyond the earlier situation, and I’m talking exclusively here of Otello and Falstaff in Verdi’s œuvre. Both these operas premièred after Cavalleria rusticana.

Here’s an example – I’m reminded again of Nedda’s bird aria, “These are mere foolish, fearful dreams.” We’re looking at harmonic progressions which go beyond Verdi and remind us of Wagner. ol You talk about the challenge to the conductor of the volume, but isn’t verismo is a tough nut for all conductors in other respects as well? js If we had to place them, Mascagni and Leoncavallo were closer to Verdi than to Puccini. Why? Among other reasons, this is because the orchestral accompaniment of the two is still very much in the tradition of their predecessors. There is a repeated basic structure offering simple, rhythmic forms of accompaniment which also sets a relatively strict, rigid framework. If a singer wants to hold a note longer, the conductor has little room for manoeuvre. They can try to forbid the singer from doing this, which is rarely agree­ able, or they have to hold up the ongoing orchestral accompaniment, which involves the risk of a train crash. A

prime example is the Santuzza-­Turiddu duet with the words “Beware, Santuzza, I am not your slave.” Virtually any tenor would extend “slave”, and the conductor has to give the singer room for this despite the ongoing pace of the orchestral accompaniment. Handling this cleanly is a real challenge!

And there are lots of such places in the score. It’s different in Puccini, there are no more rigid constraints, and instead we find a more fluid form of the accompanying voices. ol But we must assume that Mas­ cagni and Leoncavallo don’t take these constraints so rigidly. js Certainly not, although we should also note that there are a whole lot of directions relating to tempo and rubato. Mascagni had very clear ideas about how the whole piece should play. ol You talked about closeness to Wagner. Without going into the leitmotiv with its compositional, structural and psychological depths, how did the verismo composers deal with memories and other motives? js As a further complication, we clearly see the return of individual motifs with a structural function. For example, everyone knows the characteristic motif in the Pagliacci orchestral prelude which is played piano on the horn. It returns in Canio’s central aria “Vesti la giubba”, although much more tragic and prominent. We hear it a third time, at the end of the opera after “La commedia è finita.” Such an obviously dramaturgic use of motifs is unheard of in Verdi – this is an influence from the German school of composition. ol How far do Leoncavallo and Mascagni deliberately use local colour, as done for example

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in Bizet’s Carmen? Does anything in the one-act play refer to Sicily? js In Cavalleria rusticana there is an initial siciliana sung by Turiddu.

Mascagni bases this on a siciliana model from the Baroque characterised rhythmically by dotted 6/8 bar, although in reality this has no link with Sicily. In fact, he deliberately forces the three-beat bar, typical of many folk songs and which would also appear in the melody in this siciliana, into a fourbeat rhythm. In other words, he actually hides its folk song nature. In the case of Lola’s aria, however, he really does refer to a folk song (an invented one?).

Mascagni writes in the score, “Imitation of an old folk song.” ol This number seems almost like a foreign body and has the function of an aria in the opera; it

isn’t exclusively an element of the action. js Just like Turiddu’s siciliana in the prelude. ol This refers in its text directly to the opera’s deadly finale: “though at thy door dark blood be warningly lying …” js Not only that, Mascagni writes this siciliana in F minor, which is most unusual for a folk song. We only see why in the course of the opera. At the close of the Alfio–Santuzza duet, after Santuzza tells him that his wife Lola is cheating on him with Turiddu, and the libretto turns to revenge and blood, the tone changes back to F minor. Effectively the climax of the action, at which the prospect of Turiddu’s death is revealed.

Here, Mascagni is very much the musical dramaturge who creates the musical links and couplings in the action.

Jendrik Springer is Assistant to Philippe Jordan, Musical Director of the Vienna State Opera.

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ELENA STIKHINA as SANTUZZA

ERNST KRAUSE

THE

RISE AND FALL OF VERISMO AN ATTEMPT AT VINDICATION It is rare with musical styles that their origin can be pinpointed in the way that is possible with verismo. This happened when the young Pietro Mascagni picked up the recently published novella Caval­ leria rusticana by his compatriot Giovanni Verga. The sure instinct of this choice bordered on that of a sleepwalker.

The composer did not find as poignant a source text as this for any of his countless other operas, now forgotten. There was no other story that he adapted as compellingly. The result: after the sensational success of the première of Cav­ alleria rusticana, a veritable verismo epidemic took hold, spreading quickly beyond Italy’s borders.

Brimming with Greek gods and heroes, cruel tyrants and stubborn princes who (what a pious wish!) proved in the finale that they could be chastened, opera had arrived on the scene in the waning years of the Renaissance, as the Baroque era approached. Evolving

in step with changing society, opera always tapped into new and almost always contemporary material. Handel’s operas are probably the best example of how actions from the distant past actually reflect concrete links to the ideas of the Enlightenment.

It was not until the 19th century, with all its social tensions, that the bourgeois idyll and the heroicised historical milieu were included on a larger scale. It gave way to romanticism filled with potent pathos to suggest to the injured present the ideal of a past, supposedly better world. Or it tried to settle unresolved problems in parable-like myths (with Wagner’s Ring as a monumental document of the times).

In Italian opera of the 19th century, Verdi became the pioneer of realismo.

His historically-based operatic renditions portray the emotions of love and hate, jealousy, murder and manslaughter with large, energetic gestures. He

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certainly drew his subjects from “reality.” However: “Imitating reality is a good thing. But better is inventing new realities” (Verdi). One thing is constant: for Verdi, people and humanity are the focus of all his thinking and feeling. This humaneness, the truth of human nature, is crucial for him – a “truth” that was more important to him than “beauty.” This gave the forward-looking realist who rejected the “typical nonsense” of popular opera a special affection for the suffering, the tormented, and the downtrodden. No aesthetic in opera is easier to determine.

THE OTHER REALITY – NATURALISM Verismo also set out above all to achieve reality and truth in everyday images, and there is ample evidence of this. But its reality is that of a photographic image, with meticulous light and shadow, down to the last detail. Verismo artists wanted to portray people without stylisation and pathos that would appeal directly to the opera-goer. Life without any embellishment, unvarnished, naked, passionate, taking firm hold, if necessary hitting hard. This manifesto of verismo artists corresponded almost exactly to the ideas of the naturalist school that originated in France. The Goncourt brothers were the first to proclaim this approach in the prologue to their novel Germinie Lacerteux in 1864: “we ask the public to pardon us for giving them this book and must warn them what they will find in it.”

The public loves fictitious stories; this is a true story. They love books that introduce them to fashionable society; this book deals with life on the streets.”

Verga, the author of the Cavalleria story,

strikes a similar tone in the prologue to his novella Eva: “Here you have a true story, without rhetoric and hypocrisy.

You will find in it something that belongs to you, which is the fruit of passion.” Finally, in the Pagliacci prologue, this idea appears directly in the libretto: “The poet has tried to paint a slice of life for you. And he was inspired by truth.”

However: is the composer not in fact treading on thin ice when he effectively employs poetic illusion in the “prologue” to this this famous music-drama with the artistic ruse of having the fool Tonio step in front of the curtain? Isn’t this turning profound truth into a game again?

There are two serious arguments against declaring the art from the turn of the century to be naturalism, which encompasses literature, the visual arts and, of course, music equally. Literary naturalism, impressionism in painting and musical verismo were contemporary trends among others; but they were not the sole factors in determining the intellectual face of the era. The second objection concerns the term itself and says that all artistic expressions that are naturalistic in the best sense of the word are essentially realistic.

To be sure: the intellectual and artistic trends of the day were many and varied. But to stay on the topic of music: what does Debussy have to do with Mascagni, Strauss with Puccini, Schoenberg with Janáček? Each one takes their own path; and it is much easier to talk about differences than points of commonality. The argument that naturalism is just a random movement of the day is invalidated by the fact that its supporters were the only ones who did justice to the historical and social reality of the years from about 1890 on.

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ERNST KRAUSE

Did art not show tendencies towards the end of the second half of the 19th century that were bound to lead to inflexibility and sterility? It had become untrue, overripe. For years, the art of connecting with life, of restoring to it the truth of the message, was the concern of young, contemporary painters, writers and musicians who were committed to their own environment with their people and their everyday worries.

CONTINGENT ON HISTORY The fact that time had exacerbated social contradictions and the living conditions of working people could not remain without consequences. If art wanted to be true, it had to rip open the conflicts in all their severity, grievances and accusation, and even descend to the gutter. Despite the risk of stopping at the purely descriptive, of exaggerating the socially critical: talent and artistic temperament, the personality of the individual always make the line between the value and worthlessness of the work of art clear. Seen in this light, naturalism (and for its part verismo) is a historically conditioned artistic movement and perspective, born of the time and only possible in this particular age.

Naturalism was undoubtedly a fundamental, forward-looking intellectual phenomenon of the era.

As for the second argument, naturalism in the sense mentioned above does not exclude realism. The most gifted artists listed here also represent others: Gerhart Hauptmann, who wrote his most humanly mature, most rounded dramas in this year, and Max Liebermann, the great painter who was rooted in the social milieu. If one wants to do justice to a figure like Zola, who in his

novels not only sought to “describe” but also to “improve” a constant interplay of social background and individual fate, we must speak here of an expanded concept of reality. Carl Dahlhaus has tried to explain why opera verismo (as we have had in a clear classifiable form since the double act of Caval­leria rusti­ cana and Pagliacci) is tied to precisely defined “tragic catastrophes”, such as jealousy, blood-lust, murder. In fact, naturalism has found a strong artistic justification in music drama.

REALISMO AND VERISMO Is it surprising then that the new artistic movements first appeared in Italy, motherland of Romance operatic fervour? It was not just the way that Verdi in Rigoletto and Il trovatore and Ponchielli in La Gioconda heralded and anticipated the dreadful motifs of verismo, but to an even greater extent the way that the rustic sensationalism of Verga’s Cavalleria text stirred the blood of a new generation of musicians and became characteristic of the dramatically condensed opera style of the “giovane scuola” or “young school.” Nevertheless, there seems to be considerable confusion between the styles of realismo and verismo. Are Tosca and Andrea Chénier verismo works? Of course not.

With lust, devotion and passion, even linked to greed, torture and murder, both operas convey more than crude depictions of a terrible reality. Colour and ornamentation are added to bare verismo. Every whiff of narcotic cupid sensuality, all hints of romantically enchanting world-views are alien to it. Its expression, which culminates in love duets, recitatives, choruses and intermezzi, is determined by a “striving for

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truth” that has its own innate mood.

Puccini’s creative imagination (with the exception of Il tabarro) knew how to distance itself from undisguised verismo.

In most periods of music history, the dramatist preferred situations and characters in the lives of the wealthy and powerful and only in rare cases opted for the lives of the poor. A king lounging on his throne seemed more interesting than the starving peasant driven by oppressive need. In practice, the theory of verismo, applied to opera, means that instead of the heroic-aristocratic milieu of the traditional opera seria, we see various characters bound by precisely tiered social types and situations.

RITUAL OPERAS Mascagni encountered this relentlessly harsh everyday world in Verga, whose stories tell of the poor backward peasants of southern Italy, their evolving passions, their religiosity. We are clearly in Sicily, with its natural pover­t y, its bleakness. In terms of social development, decades lie between the village community of Cavalleria and the ordinary people of Pagliacci located much farther north. The two works repel rather than attract each other. What unified them is in fact external: they move the action to a festival day outdoors, maintain the unity of place and time, are one-act plays and include a religious element, the Easter procession, the vesper bell. The death of Turiddu and Canio is as it were a ritual sacrifice for the sins of the community.

MELODRAMA AND CHORUS Verismo opened the door to the melodrama of post-Verdian opera. The dire

setting provided fertile ground for the melodramatically evolving melodics.

This is something you have to see, if you want to get the full vocal, sensual effect of the musical drama of verismo opera. Its mosaic structure, as it developed in the wake of the one-act operas of 1890 and 1892, included a number of folk melodies, songs and dances, organ and bell tones – a rather short-winded style of composition, grouped by “leitmotifs.” The chorus is assigned a dominant role. (The solo roles of Cavalleria will fit on one side of a record.) Without lapsing into any aesthetic disdain: the expression and form of the verismo opera should in most cases correspond to the (by no means always sublime) content. Everything is out in the open.

As a listener and viewer, all you have to do is take the opportunity.

VIABLE COMMERCIAL ITEM A final look at the rise and fall of verismo, at its consequences. Shortly before his death, Alfredo Catalani, composer of La Wally, wrote to a friend: “Have you read that Wagner has been completely ousted from German theatres and replaced by Mascagni, Leoncavallo and Franchetti? I am glad that my name is not on the list with these people, who are given so much artistic responsibility. May they be happy and may their shoulders be broad enough to bear the legacy of a Wagner...”

The Cavalleria explosion undoubtedly left its mark. It is astonishing enough that the verismo wave from Italy (where Giordano, Cilèa, Mascagni and Leoncavallo himself soon went different ways) then swept over Germany. Spinella’s A bassa porto was first

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performed in Cologne, Tasca’s A Santa Lucia in Berlin. At that time, the Viennese Richard Heuberger wrote the harsh words: “the production of verismo operas is a business; horror and dismay have become a viable commodity.”

The competition for one-act operas, which the Duke of Saxe-Coburg announced in 1893, met with a particularly surprising response. At least two of these long-forgotten works taken from Italian folk life should be mentioned: Meyer-Helmund’s Liebeskampf and Kaskel’s Hochzeitsmorgen. Tempi passati! Actually, the only verismo

descendants left in Italy are Puccini’s tragic Il tabarro, which is influenced by impressionism, and on the other side of the Alps d’Albert’s Tiefland, which succinctly translates a naturalistic thriller from the Catalan mountains into music.

But there is nothing to laugh about here.

The dark, severe gesture, emotions of driving passion, naive love and violence are all safe in verismo. Influences of its aesthetics can still be easily discovered in the operas of Korngold, Menotti, Schreker and Shostakovich. That would not be a valid argument for “classical” verismo: it may be a vindication.

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ÉMILE ZOLA

“ART IS A CORNER OF CREATION SEEN THROUGH A TEMPERAMENT.”

M A RC E L P R AW Y

MASCAGNI & LEONCAVALLO AN IMAGE IN NEED OF CORRECTION Since 1893 it has been common practice to perform the two one-act operas Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci on the same evening, and since that time they have been regarded almost as a single opera; in America they are called “Cav and Pag” for short, like a trading company. And the composers Mascagni and Leoncavallo were seen almost as Siamese twins. However, the two operas are in fact entirely different in nature and were written by two completely different composers, about whom there is a great deal of false information north of the Alps.

Cavalleria rusticana – the first verismo opera? This is only true to a limited extent. If one understands “verismo” to mean naturalism on the opera stage, stories of blood and daggers involving ordinary people, so-called “people like you and me” as compared to traditional opera heroes, then Caval­ leria rusticana and Pagliacci are the only successful verismo operas, because this description does not apply at all to the other masterpieces in this style – such as Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, Cilèa’s Adriana Lecouvreur, and Zandonai’s

Francesca da Rimini. In reality, the almost century-long worldwide success of Pietro Mascagni’s opera Cavalleria rusticana stems from the fact that it has been largely unshackled from the true “verismo” folk play by the same name by the Sicilian folk poet Giovanni Verga. The opera intertwines verismo scenes with unrealistic mysteries – Turiddu’s “siciliana” (always off-stage in early productions), the murder behind the scenes, the long oratorio-like choruses and the truly unveristic master­-stroke of the orchestral intermezzo with the curtain open. It was only with difficulty that insightful friends stopped the composer from ending the opera – as a counterpart to the “siciliana” – with a requiem for the murdered Turiddu, behind the closed curtain. Puccini knew what material suited his talent, Mascagni did not.

Puccini would never have embarked on writing an opera to a libretto by Gabriele d’Annunzio, as Mascagni did; Richard Strauss might have been the right composer in this case.

Many of Mascagni’s other operas were very successful and are still per-

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M A S C AG N I & L E ON C AVA L L O

formed today. On 13 April 1985, I had the honour of giving a speech at the opening of the Mascagni Museum in the composer’s home town of Livorno.

That day, I experienced how much love still abounded for Mascagni. I spent my free time accepting invitations to events where recordings of Mascagni’s operas were played and listened to with rapture. Of course, many people still remember the man who remained handsome well into old age – the conductor with his strange, infinitely slow but passionate tempi – and a man who was considered the most prominent composer of the 20th century in his homeland. This is of course also due to the fact that after the failure of Madama Butterfly at La Scala in Milan (1904), there were no more Puccini premières in Italy during Puccini’s lifetime. What Puccini said about his childhood friend was certainly true: “my good friend Pietro should give me all his wonderful music – he would be amazed at the dazzling operas I would write with it!”

The situation is different with Ruggero Leoncavallo. Today he is almost forgotten – only Pagliacci and the song Mattinata (which he composed for a recording by Enrico Caruso) are still performed. The conventional definition of verismo really does apply to Pagliacci (1892). Pagliacci is synonymous with effective, brutal, but mysterious theatre.

I see the innovation of verismo not so much in the material as in a new style of singing: passionate singing between and around the notes, sobbing, howling, everything that the Italians call “urlare.” Plácido Domingo once said that there was an even more interesting novelty: Verdi’s arias generally kept within one mood, and in his opinion it was not until verismo that the mood was boosted and changed (“Laugh, clown ...”).

Pagliacci, a one-act opera, was artificially divided into two acts by an intermezzo, following the model of Cavalleria. Leoncavallo also enjoyed later success with the operas La Bohème (1897) and Zazà (1900) – but he was never really taken seriously. It was said that the plump Neapolitan was never more than the composer of café chantant music he had started out as in Paris.

And when he later composed operettas and revues and earned extremely well with them, his public esteem sank even further.

There were countless jokes about his name that infuriated him. “Leone” means lion, “cavallo” means horse, “asino” means donkey – so Puccini often called him “Leonasino.” But one thing infuriated both Mascagni and Leoncavallo – when the performance of their best-known operas was called Leoncavalleria...

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Following pages: INVA MULA as NEDDA KS NEIL SHICOFF as CANIO

DIANA KIENAST

WITH PLAYFUL JOY RECOLLECTIONS OF MASTER

DIRECTOR JEAN-PIERRE PONNELLE Jean-Pierre Ponnelle didn’t always treat singers with kid gloves during rehearsals, and even conductors had to deal with the occasional stinging rebuke.

However, this apparent ruthlessness was always for the sake of the piece, the result of the passion with which he sought the core of the work. In developing his famous staging of the verismo duo Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci, the inner drive of the highly musical Ponnelle was particularly obvious. He was not someone who could never be distracted for an instant from a completed production book. On the contrary, he constantly tried out new ideas, rejecting existing solutions to replace them with better ones, even if it was a case of rehearsing an existing production, with his staging of Cavalleria rus­ ticana and Pagliacci, which the Vienna State Opera had more or less imported from another house in 1985.

For Ponnelle this was not a finished product meant to be rehashed with new performers. He positively obsessed over numerous apparently insignificant details in the short scene in which

Arlecchino mimed a parody of a phone conversation with Colombina, shortening the phone cord piece by piece in line with the rising pizzicati in the strings, for which Ponnelle used almost a full morning’s rehearsal. But the result ultimately always justified his insistence on precision.

In his inner eye, Ponnelle always saw a concrete situation, an image that he wanted to bring to life on the stage.

He rarely demonstrated something, preferring to explain his ideas emphatically and inviting the singers to participate in developing an idea. Mostly, he sat in an armchair, tightly focused and following the rehearsal, correcting and occasionally provoking in order to get more from the participants. He had no mercy on his own artistic creation, and if he made a mistake, he admitted it freely.

For example, for the brotherly kiss between Alfio and Turiddu towards the end of Cavalleria rusticana he wanted to make the threatening mafia touch in the male chorus even more obvious and gave the darkly clad men sunglasses in addition to the black hats. Admitting

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WITH PLAYFUL JOY

the triteness of this idea, Ponnelle made the sunglasses disappear at the next rehearsal.

The idea of effectively reversing the set of the Cavalleria rusticana village and making Pagliacci play in another section of the same village, is another example of Ponnelle’s genius. First, this stroke of staging genius benefits the Vienna State Opera, which does not need two completely different sets on one evening. Second, this visually connects two very different pieces traditionally played on the same night.

Ponnelle saw the connection between them as the great human conflicts, resulting from social and family constraints. In his setting of Cavalleria rusticana he emphasises the strength of the individual women, who scarcely dare express themselves under the pressure of the prevailing viciously reac­ tionary misogyny – or only within certain conventions. Even at the moment of the murder of Turridu, the son and lover, Mamma Lucia and Santuzza are not allowed to show their grief. While internally devastated, they appear almost frozen to the public, in contrast to the mourners in the background, who give “official” expression to the re-

pressed emotions. By contrast, in Pagli­ acci it is Nedda’s yearning for a different, free life, as reflected in the flight of the bird, which leads to the fatal ending.

Nedda does not hate Canio. The two are a well-practised team, she is aware of his love, feels secure with him, probably even treasures him But Silvio touches a level in her which Canio has no notion of, which Nedda cannot reach in the caged life of a wandering performer.

The staging (set in the 1930s) ultimately lives from the numerous subtleties of colour, small gestures. Santuzza’s hinted-at pregnancy, which makes her situation seem even more inescapable.

The fact that she clearly recognised from the start that Alfio knew about his wife’s adultery. The strengthening of local colour by the inclusion of the children, so important in Italian society. The poetic mime in the prelude to Pagliacci, unfortunately cut by Eberhard Waechter. The tiny but steadily growing van of the approaching troupe on the horizon. These, and similar apparent side issues show the joy JeanPierre Ponnelle has enriched these productions with, which after three and a half decades seem as new and valid as at their premières.

27

ANDREAS LÁNG

PREMIÈRES, TRUE AND FAUX CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA AND PAGLIACCI

AT THE VIENNA STATE OPERA Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci mostly appear at the Vienna State Opera as Siamese twins as a matter of course. Even so, in their almost 130 years of history at the house the two short operas have occasionally made their separate ways, in very remark­able company. As a result of the different première dates (Cavalleria rusticana 1890, Pagliacci 1892) it took some time for the first combined première.

In accordance with its earlier creation, Cavalleria rusticana also opened first at the Vienna State Opera – and took the public by storm. Including Vienna’s famous resident “Beckmesser”, Eduard Hanslick. “In Italy, 30 to 40 new operas première every year, last year (1890) there were even 54! Most of them land up silently in a corner pocket of theatrical statistics, never to see the light of day again.” This is how he starts his detailed review in the Neue Freie Presse, going on to plaudits for Mascagni and his best-known opera to date. “More than unusual, it is unheard of for the first dramatic attempt of a young Italian to be not only celebrated

as a masterpiece throughout Italy but also presented in German at the great German houses. Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana is the first example in musical history of such a quick and almost overnight international success. How long the most famous Italian masters had to wait for this honour.”

Hanslick would have not been himself if he had not passed from “applause which went beyond all measure to a level of messianic adulation” to push back, casting at least a few aspersions on the new score (“The fact that the audience is delighted by many melodies which are neither new nor particularly notable is due largely to the effective orchestration”) and particularly on the revised German translation (“clumsiest street trash”). All in all, however, he admitted “that such a general and spontaneous success never emerged without sufficient reason” and prophesied a great future for the piece.

It actually took less than two years for the first production to hit the hundred mark, although – as noted – this was in what is today unusual company.

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PR EMIÈR E S, T RU E A N D FAU X

For example, it was paired with ballets such as Der Spielmann, Wiener Walzer, Rococo, Die Puppenfee, Coppélia, Rouge et noir, and Harlequinade, or operas such as Donizetti’s savagely cut La Fille du Régiment, Rossini’s equally cut Il barbiere di Siviglia, Cherubini’s Les deux journées ou Le Porteur d’Eau, Gluck’s Le cadi dupé or his L’amico Fritz, even another Mascagni opera, or an entirely unknown nine day wonder, in the hope that the brilliance of Cavalleria rusticana would spill over on the undistinguished newcomer.

On 19 November, 1893, more than two years later, Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci joined in the Vienna State Opera honours. Italian guest performances had already made the Viennese public familiar with the piece, including Theater an der Wien audiences, so that the sensation was not as great as with Cavalleria rusticana. This time, Hanslick’s verdict was cooler. He niggled about “hotblooded talent” but “lack of originality” and welcomed the fact that the repetition of individual arias was stopped by the Vienna State Opera’s unwritten da capo prohibition.

All in all, however, Pagliacci also soon became a box office hit which was paired with ballets such as Robert und Bertrand and Sylvia, die Nymphe der Diana before at the sixth performance (almost coincidentally) it first appeared with Cavalleria rusticana. There was no particular effect at first – quite the opposite, in fact. Pagliacci also had to suffer in other more or less absurd combinations, although these were gradually outnumbered by today’s usual international pairing. (It should be said that pairing is actually the wrong term here, as for a long time a third piece completed the evening performance.)

Whether together or separately, the première of the two pieces, their sets in both cases by Anton Brioschi, outlasted both the musical directors Jahn and Mahler in numerous performances, and offered ideas for development to important darlings of the public. (Leoncavallo was probably pleased that Mahler never intervened in the Pagliacci score.

This was definitely not the case in the première of a Vienna State Opera version of his La Bohème, with the result that Leoncavallo deleted his own name on an invitation to the dress rehearsal due to the numerous changes and furiously wrote in Mahler’s name.)

To add prominence to the première of Albert Gorter’s one-acter Das süße Gift on 8 October 1908, director Weingartner announced a euphemistic new production of a Pagliacci première, which was actually anything but an improvement. Today, we would probably accurately speak of an unsuccessful revival, but good marketing is clearly not an invention of the last few years!

At least this faux première gave Julius Korngold the opportunity for a bon mot: “offered the choice between Leon­ cavallo and Mascagni, I would instantly choose Puccini.” For whatever reason, Das süße Gift did not last long, and Caval­leria rusticana soon resumed its traditional place alongside Pagliacci.

There was a similar situation on 21 March 1936 when another Pagliacci première was faked to boost sales of a Richard Tauber appearance as Canio (together with a revival of an existing production of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi.)

This time, the unusual liaison was only brief, and the age-old Cavalleria rusti­ cana staging resumed its laurels.

The new production appeared on 12 December 1945 at the temporary quar-

29

PR EMIÈR E S, T RU E A N D FAU X

ters at the Volksoper building, with a joint première of the two pieces for the first time in the Vienna State Opera performance history. Josef Witt’s staging and Walter von Hoesslin’s necessarily spartan sets were home for the next ten years to the stars of opera. The fact that the two pieces established themselves so quickly in the schedule after World War II further attests to their popularity!

To great media response, the first joint new production emerged on 8 March 1959 at the newly-opened Vienna State Opera, naturally in Italian on Karajan’s instruction (although previously it was performed as Der Bajazzo instead of Pagliacci, and Caval­ leria rusticana was still shown as Sizi­ lianische Bauernehre as a precaution.)

The particular thing on this night was that the two pieces had new productions, but with different leading teams.

For Cavalleria rusticana, the director was Dieter Ludwig, with sets by Nicola Benois, while Pagliacci was directed by Paul Hager, extremely busy at the time at the Vienna State Opera, with sets and costumes by the young Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. The row of façades was Ponnelle’s acoustically ideal and visually extremely convincing solution, which in retrospect points to the subtle aspects of the brilliant staging he developed a quarter of a century later.

After Lorin Maazel’s premature departure as director of the Vienna State Opera, many ambitious projects had to be musically abandoned or completely modified. However, Maazel’s predecessor and successor Egon Seefehlner

was set on a new production of Caval­ leria rusticana and Pagliacci (although the young Adam Fischer conducted the première instead of Maazel). For the design, all the eggs were in one basket – Jean-Pierre Ponnelle combined the positions of director, set and costume designer. With a background of emphatically southern Italian and almost archaic village architecture, he created an extremely detailed setting in the 1930s which has subsequently entered into the performance annals as a classic.

For the event, crowds of opera lovers had camped for weeks around the theatre to get coveted standing room places for the première on 6 June 1985.

Besides Ponnelle, duly fêted were Elena Obraztsova as Santuzza, Luis Lima as Turiddu (who had to sing with a cast on his arm due to an accident at the première), and most prominently Plácido Domingo as Canio and Ileana Cotrubaş as Nedda. The fact that Kenya’s Head of State was an official guest of the Austrian Federal President gave special status to the evening.

A recurrent criticism that the setting seemed ragged should cause the current technical director one sleepless night.

Parenthetically, the two pieces in the coordinated production have even been occasionally torn apart over the years and combined with other pieces and settings which are in entirely different styles. However, it should be emphasised that the production has lost none of its appeal over more than three and a half decades (even if Alfio’s living carnival rides and the pantomime at the start of Pagliacci have disappeared over time).

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FROM THE WIENER ZEITUNG /

REVIEW OF THE PREMIÈRE, 1893

“LAST NIGHT’S PREMIÈRE OF PAGLIACCI AT THE VIENNA COURT OPERA WAS A RESOUNDING SUCCESS. COMPOSER AND PERFORMERS WERE ENDLESSLY CALLED BEFORE THE CURTAIN BY AN ENTHUSIASTIC PUBLIC, AND IT IS CERTAIN THAT LEONCAVALLO’S WORK WILL BE A BOX OFFICE DRAW FOR A LONG TIME...”

PIETRO MASCAGNI

EXPEC­TATIONS EXCEEDED

BY REALITY FROM THE COMPOSER’S MEMOIRS One July evening in 1888, I stayed longer than usual at the Philharmonic. Finally, I left the house for my usual walk and went to my barber, who also sold newspapers. The paper I preferred was Corriere della Sera, but for a reason I can no longer remember, it was not available this time. “Tonight, you’ll have to make do with the ’Secolo’,” said my newspaper-selling barber – and with that newspaper in my pocket, I went home. Once at home, I opened the paper: “good heavens!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps fate has decided to help us this time! The Teatro Illustrato has announced a competition for a one-act opera, and I want to enter!

I have the subject, Cavalleria rusticana, and I even have Verga’s permission to set the story to music.”

* In January 1888 I was in Naples to meet Puccini, who was giving Le Villi at the Teatro San Carlo. He said: “Are you still thinking about Ratcliff ? [an opera project by Mascagni that he only completed later] Listen: Ratcliff simply cannot be your first opera; try to make a name for yourself first and sacrifice some of your ideals. And then you can do what you want later.” As a result, the idea of writing another opera instead of Ratcliff had taken root in me; but I was still waiting for the right opportunity. Now here it was: the Sonzogno competition. I went looking for a good librettist, but I couldn’t find one; or rather, I could have had any one of many, but they all wanted money. I didn’t have any and so I couldn’t offer it.

* So I went to Livorno to meet my friend Giovanni TargioniTozzetti, a former school friend. At that time, Tristan und Isolde was being performed in Bologna at the Teatro Comunale under KS PETER SEIFFERT as TURIDDU

33

PIETRO MASCAGNI

Giuseppe Martucci. So I stopped off in Bologna to see the performance, which impressed me greatly. As soon as I arrived in Livorno, I met Targioni. “Can you write a libretto for me?”

“But I’ve never written one!”

“What does that matter? You’re a poet, and I’ll give you the subject: Cavalleria rusticana!”

“Ah! It was performed in Livorno. A great success. Wonderful idea!”

“I’ll tell you right away that I’d like to stay very close to the original... but I want to add a few lyrical passages so that I can write a bit of music, since the drama on its own doesn’t allow for music, an opening chorus, a drinking song for Easter, etc.

The other lyrical passages come naturally, for example when the tenor goes off to die, you can expand a little on the words that Verga used...”

* I waited in vain for the libretto and wrote often to Targioni to remind him. While I was waiting, I thought more about the finale than anything else. I heard this “Hanno ammazzato compare Turiddu” in my head, but I couldn’t find a phrase or closing orchestral harmonies that would make a strong impact. But then it happened that the finale suddenly came to me, like a flash, one morning on the main street of Canosa as I was on my way to give a lesson. And so I started my opera with the ending.

And then, on postcards, the long-awaited verses arrived. I had barely 50 days left. So then! When I received the verses for the opening chorus (I only thought about the siciliana in the prelude later), I said to my wife with satisfaction: “today we must make a big purchase.”

“Namely of...?”

“An alarm clock.”

“What for?”

“So that I can start composing Cavalleria rusticana very early tomorrow.”

I set the alarm clock before going to bed, but I didn’t need it this time, because that night (it was February 3, 1889), at exactly three o’clock, the second Mimì was born, my little angel, the first of my children. Nevertheless, I kept the promise I had made to myself, and in the morning I began to write the opening chorus of Cavalleria. I received the libretto bit by bit, but I always had the situations in my head. I had identified so strongly with the drama that I felt it as music within me. I liked the libretto and immediately began to set it to music; without a piano, as I didn’t have one at the time. But when I was giving piano lessons

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E X P E C ­T A T I O N S E X C E E D E D B Y R E A L I T Y

to my students and had to wait for the young ladies, I tried out what I had come up with. But I found something in the libretto that I didn’t like: a stornello [an improvised song]. “But stornelli are Tuscan, not Sicilian!” Later I found out the reason for the stornello: Turiddu was a soldier on the mainland, not on the island. Back in Sicily, he showed off to all the women, smoking a Virginia and thinking he was better than everyone else because he had been to Milan. So it was also possible that he had taught his lover Lola this Tuscan stornello.

* Finally, the day of the première arrived, 17 May. Anyone who hasn’t been to the Teatro Costanzi cannot imagine what happened then – an unforgettable evening in the life of an artist!

Here my memory fails me. Every memory is blurred by the emotions that never left me throughout the performance. A few hazy moments: Queen Margherita, that special soul, in her proscenium box; Maestro Leopoldo Mugnone [the conductor of the première], the great driving heart of that wondrous performance; the distinguished musicians who had judged Cavalleria; the thunderous applause when the organ sounded in the intermezzo, that organ whose powerful sound was the real reason for the great success. Sgambati said to me: “We are expecting the Queen. The prelude must be repeated because we must stop when she arrives“ (at that time performances were stopped as soon as the King or Queen arrived).

And so it was. Poor Roberto Stagno [the Turiddu at the première] had to stop his Siciliana and Mugnone had to start all over again. I experienced my music as I had heard it when the god had dictated it to me, not knowing whether I was still alive or whether I was living in a dream that was realising the dream in which the music came from my soul – because the performance I heard was the exact expression of my feelings. I seem to remember that throughout the performance I pressed my hands to my head and heart for fear of losing them, and on my lips I had a constant prayer to the Almighty not to let me go mad.

Nobody expected such a success. The audience went mad. All my hopes, all my expectations were exceeded by reality. I had to go out for sixty curtain calls. When I appeared in the spotlight before the frenetic audience, I thought I was dreaming. I came and went like an automaton; suddenly the knot in my throat untied and I began to cry like a child. I felt all the joy of being able to provide a comfortable life for my wife, my children and my father… I saw everything in a new light… I thought about all this while the audience applauded… and kept applauding…

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ANN-CHRISTINE MECKE

A VENTITRÈ ORE! ABOUT THE BEGINNING OF

THE COMMEDIA PERFORMANCE Canio’s announcement on the village square seems rather surprising: “A ventitré ore”, in other words “at 11 p.m.” celebrating the Assumption of Mary, he announces a “grand performance.”

Does the performance really only begin at eleven o’clock at night? On a hot August day in Calabria, one might imagine that, after all, it would perhaps be pleasantly cool then. But how are we then to understand Beppe’s statement that people come straight from the church to the performance – are church services also held at this late hour? No, beforehand the churchgoers enter the church to the sound of the vesper bells (“ding, dong”).

They do not spend five hours there, nor does the opera’s plot leave room for another holiday service.

The solution to the riddle lies in a different method of counting time. Pagliacci’s characters do not count from midnight to midnight, but from sunset to the next sunset. This method is known as “Italian hours” and was used primarily in Italy until the beginning of the 20th century. Since the sun sets in Calabria shortly before eight in mid-August, the performance begins at around 7 p.m., and the holiday vespers start earlier, perhaps at 6 p.m. The action begins at 3 p.m., and the stage direction indicates the time in the usual hourly counting: “it is three hours after noon, the August sun is burning hot.” The action then takes place before our eyes without any jumps, but time passes on average at four times the speed: while a good four hours pass for Nedda, Canio, Silvio and the others, it is only one hour for us as audience members.

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ASMIK GRIGORIAN as NEDDA

IMPRINT PIETRO MASCAGNI / RU G G E RO L E ON CAVA L L O

CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA / PAGLIACCI SEASON 2024/25 PREMIÈRE OF THE PRODUCTION 6 JUNE 1985 Publisher WIENER STAATSOPER GMBH, Opernring 2, 1010 Wien Director DR. BOGDAN ROŠČIĆ Music Director PHILIPPE JORDAN Administrative Director DR. PETRA BOHUSLAV General Editors SERGIO MORABITO, ANDREAS LÁNG AND OLIVER LÁNG Design & concept EXEX Layout & typesetting MIWA MEUSBURGER Printed by PRINT ALLIANCE HAV PRODUKTIONS GMBH, BAD VÖSLAU TEXT & IMAGE REFERENCES Except for the interview with Jendrik Springer and the texts by Diana Kienast, Andreas Láng and Ann-Christine Mecke all articles were taken from the première programme 1985. IMAGE REFERENCES Cover image: Marina Abramovic, Rest Energy; with the kind permission of the Pomeranz Collection (pomeranz-collection.com). Cover image concept: Martin Conrads, Berlin. Performance photos: Michael Pöhn / Wiener Staatsoper GmbH. The English translation is by Andrew Smith.

Reproduction only with approval of Wiener Staatsoper GmbH / Dramaturgy. Holders of rights who were unavailable regarding retrospect compensation are requested to make contact.

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