"I PAGLIACCI"
Pagliacci is the Italian word for clowns, a decidedly unique subject for grand opera. Novelty is one of the characteristics of this work. It has already achieved fame, altho but a child in age and size, being only a few years old and two acts long. Leoncavallo, the composer and librettist, has since written another opera, "I Medici," which has found favor in Europe, but is still unheard in America.
Pagliacci is startling and intense from the entrance of the Prologue to the clown's last word, "finita." The music abounds in surprises, and altho Leoncavallo has been charged with some plagiarism, his work but reflects the influence of such recent composers as Wagner and Mascagni.
The opening orchestral measures are of peculiar rhythm, and suggest the spasmodic movement of puppets on a string; but this implies no lack of dignity to the composition. There are passages that recall the "Flying Dutchman," and Leoncavallo adopts the Wagnerian method of handling his themes; in other words, each one has a meaning that is adhered to throughout the opera. In this introduction we hear the warm and sunny love-music, followed by the somber theme of revenge like a shadow after light. Then the puppet-music is hastily resumed, to remind us that a clown must laugh and dance, however bitter his feelings.
During the overture a painted and grotesque personage steps before the curtain and announces himself as the Prologue. This innovation has prompted some wag to remark that "the opera commences before it begins!" Mascagni, in his "Cavalleria Rusticana," was the first to present an unconventional opening, by having a serenade behind the curtain, but Leoncavallo has outdone his rival by having a prologue in front of the curtain. He tells us that the play is taken from life, and that in spite of their motley and tinsel the actors have human hearts. This satisfying song, with its appealing melody and large, resounding accompaniment, has never yet failed to arouse an encore. With a final signal for the play to begin, the Prologue skips out as the curtain goes up.
The scene represents an Italian village gaily decorated for the "Feast of the Assumption," an annual fête that lasts a week. We see at one side a rough mimic theater, with stage and curtain, a temporary structure erected for a troupe of players who are just entering the town. There are shouting and laughter behind the scenes, sounds of a discordant trumpet and a terrible drum, and soon the villagers enter, vociferously greeting and surrounding a donkey-cart in which are the players. It is a meager troupe, consisting of Canio, the master, Nedda, his wife, Beppo, the harlequin, and Tonio, the fool. They wear fantastic costumes. Canio beats his big drum, while Nedda scatters play-bills, and the villagers think the troupe quite wonderful. They are welcomed with an impulsive sweeping chorus that seems to disregard all precedent in the matter of keys. These peasants apparently sing in an ungoverned, unrestrained way of their own; but as an Italian's tattered costume is always picturesque, so is this artless music most graceful and charming. Canio bows grotesquely on all sides, and again thumps his drum to make the people listen as he tells them that at seven o'clock the play will begin:
| "You all are invited, |
| And will be delighted |
| As you witness the woes of poor Punchinello, |
| Who revenges himself on a rascally fellow." |
Canio's professional music, such as the foregoing speech, is made admirably artificial, thin and cheap as tissue paper, with uncertain accompaniment and flimsy melodies.