The premiere night of the opera, with music by Leoncavallo written to his own libretto, took place in Milan in 1892. Since then Pagliacci has enjoyed enormous popularity. A true story in a Calabrian village served a plot basis: after an evening performance, an actor from a touring company kills his wife and her lover.
The Opera Centre’s stage will be animated by the world of clowns, wandering comedians, who however absurd they may seem on stage live and love passionately in real life and touch the audience to tears.
The first act takes place in a picturesque Italian village, with the arrival of a wandering troupe of musicians, the second act sees the musicians’ actual performance for the villagers in a Commedia dell’Arte genre. To work on this production the Opera Centre has specially invited a Commedia dell’Arte expert from Italy – Claudio de Maglio. The musical director of the performance is the young talented Italian conductor Gianluca Marciano. Canio’s part will be performed by Sergey Polyakov – the Opera Centre’s graduate, who now performs at the world’s major opera venues.
Director – Ivan Popovski
Set and costumes design– Andrey Klimov
Conductor – Yaroslav Tkalenko