California Theatre - The Golden Bay Times

Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci is a dramatic double-bill opera pairing blending two gritty tales of love, betrayal, jealousy, and revenge set in rustic Italy. In the first opera, Cavalleria Rusticana, villagers in a Sicilian town gather for Easter as old wounds resurface: a young soldier returns home to find his former love married, and in his anger and wounded pride he pursues another woman. Bitter jealousy, heartbreak, and social pressure collide against the backdrop of faith and tradition until romantic deception spirals toward vengeance. The music pulses with raw emotion as simple lives unravel in tragic intensity. Then Pagliacci throws us backstage to a travelling troupe of actors who arrive in a small town hoping to entertain. Behind the laughter and stage costumes there are real lives, marred by a painful betrayal. The troupe’s lead, a clown bound to perform, discovers that his wife has been unfaithful. As he is forced to carry on with the show, his personal agony bleeds into the performance. Warm on the outside and seething beneath the paint, the clown grapples with jealousy and rage. Together these two operas deliver a powerful, haunting evening of human frailty and dramatic passion.