I have always thought that you should marry someone you know you could be happily divorced from. They wouldn’t bear a grudge and get nasty. Unfortunately, Nedda, the heroine of Pagliacci (sung and acted to perfection by Paula Sides) doesn’t have that option. She is married to a violently jealous man Canio, played and sung with stirring passion and threatening demeanour by Ronald Samm.
Pagliacci, (Italian for clowns) written by Ruggero Leoncavallo and premiered in 1892, tells the tale of how a heartbroken actor Canio kills his actress wife on stage. The story was inspired by the composer’s memory of a real-life incident in his childhood when a village girl was murdered by two rival suitors.
The heartbroken Canio as he dresses for his performance, and laments his lost love, says: “Vesti la giubba” (on with the motley) as he dresses to play the clown Pierrot opposite his wife Nedda playing Pierrot’s unfaithful lover Columbina.
In this modern dress version, when Canio takes out his Jacket for the performance it is exactly the same as the one he is already wearing. Art will echo life.
English Touring Opera have modernised the tale, set it in the 1980s and present an opera which is in two very different halves. The first half is sombre and threatening with Leoncavallo’s magnificent music played by a superb orchestra, conducted by Gerry Cornelius.
We know from the menacing music when Nedda and her lover Silvio (exquisitely sung and played by Danny Shelvey) have been spotted by an erupting Canio – having been given away by slimy thwarted suitor Tonio (Matthew Siveter in fine evil form).
At the start of the second half, the tone changes completely. Now we have the play within the play and it’s hilarious. Michael Pavelka’s inspired set of a modern kitchen and Laura Jane Stanfield’s witty costumes are entirely pink. All of it: The Smeg fridge, the window blinds, the surfaces and the knife block. Paula Sides’ Nedda is wearing pink trousers and a tight-fitting pink top. She has a candyfloss pink wig and pink shoes.
Here we have a marvellous set of comic performances. If you like your opera funny, It’s absolutely gorgeous.
Which makes it all the more shocking when Ronald Samm’s Canio enters the pantomime set and kills Nedda on stage. Directed by Eleanor Burke, this is as engagingly slick as English Touring Opera’s shows always are.
The modern setting and English translation from the Italian certainly make the plot immediately accessible but whereas with comedy this means we immediately get the jokes, with a tragedy, the words (sometimes rather prosaic) can detract from the emotion being conveyed by the music.
That said, this is a memorable performance beautifully played, orchestrated and sung with impressive stagecraft and a display of all the talents.
English Touring Opera is touring Pagliacci and The Gondoliers with their next shows in Cornwall, Exeter, Durham and York.
