Premièred on 21 May 1892 at Milan’s Teatro Dal Verme under the baton of Arturo Toscanini, Pagliacci was an immediate success, and today it remains Leoncavallo’s best known opera, just as “Vesti la giubba” is perhaps one of the most famous operatic arias of all time.

The composer drew inspiration from a real incident that had occurred in a Calabrian town, an incident steeped in love and death, which inspired him to write his personal contribution to the new stylistic-aesthetic trend in Italian opera. In the Prologue, Leoncavallo inserted a clear manifesto on verismo (real theatre). His aim was to “paint a scene from real life” and since “the artist is a person, […] he should write for the people. Therefore, he took inspiration from real life.”

In the story of Nedda, Tonio and Canio we therefore find a well managed mix of art and reality, operatic theatre and life, with the latter almost superseding the former, to the extent that the chorus exclaims towards the end: “This scene seems so real!” This production, recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in September 2019, was critically acclaimed.

Conductor Valerio Galli “reads the score with the proper technique, succeeding in enhancing all the various shades for each scene … Pagliacci is conducted with passion… with a careful eye for the dramatic development of the story, and the sound is rendered with a variety of shades and colours.”

“Directors Luigi Di Gangi and Ugo Giacomazzi’s setting is rather traditional, and the acting abilities of each singer are enhanced and carefully managed throughout the whole performance.”

Angelo Villari’s Turiddu has a “beautiful and wide voice…and his Vesti la giubba is so remarkable that the audience responded with mid-performance applause.”

“Valeria Sepe portrays a confident and smooth Nedda, both vocally and dramatically. Her strengths are a clear timbre and good projection, and her voice is rich and full of colour.” – connessiallopera.it

Cast:
- Nedda / Colombina: Valeria Sepe
- Canio / Pagliaccio: Angelo Villari
- Tonio / Taddeo: Devid Cecconi
- Peppe / Arlecchino: Matteo Mezzaro
- Silvio: Leon Kim
- A villager: Vito Luciano Roberti
- Another villager Leonardo Melani
- Extras: Elena Barsotti, Gaia Mazzeranghi, Erika Melli, Jane Tayar, Paolo Arcangeli, Cristiano Colangelo, Pierangelo Preziosa, Davide Riminucci

Directors: Luigi Di Gangi and Ugo Giacomazzi
Set designer: Federica Parolini
Costume designer: Agnese Rabatti
Light designer: Luigi Biondi

Video director: Matteo Ricchetti

Video Format / Aspect ratio: 16:9 1080 / 60 I BD25
Audio Format: PCM STEREO 2.0 / DTS 5.1 HD Master Audio
Region code: 0 – All regions
Subtitles: Italian, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean
Notes: Italian, English