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Double helping of verismo misery … Carmen Giannattasio as Nedda in Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House, London.
Double helping of verismo misery … Carmen Giannattasio as Nedda in Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House, London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian
Double helping of verismo misery … Carmen Giannattasio as Nedda in Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House, London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian

Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci review – ravishing sounds and detailed naturalism

This article is more than 8 years old

Royal Opera House, London
In Damiano Michieletto’s new production of this famous double bill, the stories are presented straightforwardly and the tragedies perfectly defined. Among the singers, soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek is a standout

It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the most famous double bill in opera was seen at Covent Garden in a Royal Opera production. The new staging of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci is directed by Damiano Michieletto, but this time there is no hint of the outrage that greeted his production of Guillaume Tell in this same theatre five months ago.

Michieletto’s approach to this double helping of verismo misery is is to create a very carefully detailed naturalism. He relocates the two operas in small-town southern Italy today, with the central revolve of Paolo Fantin’s set revealing the interior and exterior of a bakery for Cavalleria Rusticana, and the hall and backstage of the community centre where the performance is taking place for Pagliacci. The intermezzos of both works provide opportunities to integrate the action further: Nedda (Carmen Giannattasio) and Silvio (Dionysios Sourbis) are seen meeting for the first time during the interlude of Cavalleria Rusticana, while the midpoint of the second opera provides the opportunity for a reminder of Eva-Maria Westbroek’s still-grieving Santuzza, comforted by a priest and then being reconciled with Turiddu’s mother, Mamma Lucia (Elena Zilio).

Dealing in real emotions … Eva-Maria Westbroek (right) as Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

But those contrivances work effectively, and crucially never distract from the dramas they punctuate. The stories are generally straightforwardly presented – the dramatic shape of the Mascagni at least is hardly sophisticated anyway, though in Pagliacci, Michieletto does blur the lines between the play within the play and the lives of the protagonists, between what is happening backstage and what is being played out in front of the village audience.

With the carefully directed chorus fleshing out the action in both operas with busy detail, and Antonio Pappano extracting some ravishing sounds from the Opera House Orchestra alongside some blood-and-thunder climaxes, the framework for the playing out of the tawdry tragedies is perfectly defined. Aleksandrs Antonenko sings both Turridu and Canio with apparently inexhaustible supplies of robust virile tone, though showing very little in the way of dynamic range, and Dimitri Platanias similarly doubles as Alfio and Tonio. Giannattasio makes something rather brittle out of Nedda, though, and only Westbroek of all the protagonists in both operas really seems to deal in real emotions; whether that’s a problem of the production or the operas themselves, though, is personal taste.

  • In rep at the Royal Opera House, London, until 1 January. Box office: 020-7304 4000.


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