PAGLIACCI AND CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA

Director Robert Carsen reverses the order in this production for the Dutch National Opera, but it isn’t a mere whim. It is a key part of his vision for this pairing of works because one flows from the other.

Carsen’s overreaching theme is taken from Tonio’s prologue that opens ‘Pagliacci’: the boundary between fictional emotions as portrayed on stage and the real emotions of the actors/singers themselves. Who is who? Participants in the drama or audience?

In an extraordinary coup de theatre at the opening of ‘Pagliacci’ the soberly-dressed patrons in the first three rows of the stalls rise to a disturbance and transform themselves into the chorus.

And at the end of ‘Cavalleria Rusticana’, they disperse, revealing a huge mirror in which the audience themselves are reflected as witnesses of the tragedies.

So Carsen is interested in blurring the boundary of artifice, but he doesn’t do it through showy stagecraft. In fact, Pagliacci works through minimal scenery, barring multiple proscenium arches, and Cav uses little more than music stands and theatrical mirrors. That’s because it picks up right from the final murder of Pag, and is set backstage at the theatre where the story plays out as a love triangle between members of the chorus.

Sung in Italian with English subtitles
176m inc Interval

Purchase your own tickets and meet in the cafe bar from 11.45 I’ve got ticket H7

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