Leoncavallo's "Painted Smiles"

Synopsis

On today's date in 1892, at Italy's premiere opera house, La Scala in Milan, Arturo Toscanini conducted the first performance of a new one-act opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo. The opera was titled "Pagliacci," and would rapidly become an international hit, and Leoncavallo's one, undisputed masterpiece.

Leoncavallo's father was an Italian magistrate, and from him the composer heard of a true story: a sordid tale of infidelity and murder that occurred among a troupe of traveling show-biz people—literally a bunch of clowns. The contrast between the painted smiles of the professional entertainers and the murderous private passions they masked appealed to the opera composer's sense of drama. "Pagliacci" was the result—and one of those rare occasions when everything clicked, and the timing was just right.

Two years earlier, Leoncavallo's slightly younger contemporary, Pietro Mascagni, had scored a hit with another one-act opera titled "Cavalleria Rusticana," also dealing with a lower-class murder. The two operas made up a perfect double-bill, and as "Cav and Pag," "Cavallieria Rusticana" and "Pagliacci" became well-nigh inseparable partners for the next 100 years. Their tabloid-like dramatic style was dubbed "verismo," and has proven effective for hundreds of other operas written ever since.

In all, Leoncavallo wrote over a dozen other operas, ranging from Wagnerian epics to comic operettas, but they are rarely if ever revived—and, ironically, the same can be said for Pietro Mascagni.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857 – 1919) excerpts, fr Pagliacci Luciano Pavarotti, tenor; Philadelphia Orchestra; Riccardo Muti, cond. Philips 438 132

On This Day

Births

• 1904 - American composer and jazz pianist Thomas "Fats" Waller, in New York City;

Deaths

• 1895 - Austrian composer Franz von Suppé, age 76, in Vienna;

Premieres

• 1739 - Rameau: opera-ballet "Les Fêtes d'Hébé," in Paris;

• 1892 - Leoncavallo: opera "Pagliacci," in Milan at Teatro dal Verme, with Arturo Toscanini conducting;

• 1925 - Busoni: "Doctor Faust," posthumously, in Dresden (completed by Philip Jarnach);

• 1956 - Perischetti: Piano Sonata No. 7, at the Philadelphia Conservatory, by pianist Robert Smith;

• 1962 - Stockhausen: "Momente" for soprano, choruses, and instruments, in Cologne;

• 1980 - Jacob Druckman: "Prism" for orchestra, by the Baltimore Symphony, Sergiu Commissiona conducting;

• 1983 - Dave Brubeck: "Pange Lingua" Variations for chorus, jazz quartet, and orchestra, at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, Calif., with Russell Gloyd conducting;

• 1987 - Harrison Birtwistle: opera "The Mask of Orpheus," at the London Coliseum by the English National Opera, Elgar Howarth and Paul Daniel conducting;

• 2000 - Bruce Adolphe: "Tyrannosaurus Sue (A Cretaceous Concerto)", at the Field Museum in Chicago, by the Chicago Chamber Players.