YMMV / Pagliacci

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• Alternative Character Interpretation: The closing line ("The comedy is finished!") was originally written for Tonio, but was later given to Canio. (It's been performed both ways, sometimes even in the same production on alternating nights, with something of a Broken Base among opera fans.) Depending who says the line makes a big difference to the interpretation of both characters. If Canio says it, his message becomes "I'm through playing these Sad Clown theatrical games, this is reality." If Tonio says it, he's revealing himself as the Manipulative Bastard who got everything in the show to work out the way he wanted (and forms a Framing Device with his opening monologue).
  • For that matter, how do we parse the line itself? It's meant to be spoken (or shouted), not sung, so the staging makes many different interpretations possible. "The comedy is finished" could signify "...And now we have to live with this tragedy," or "I've had a psychotic break and can't tell between the stage and real life," or "I've done everything I needed to do for my revenge," or even just "That's our show, ladies and gentlemen..."
  • Daringly, the 2018 San Francisco Opera production has Mamma Lucia say "La commedia è finita" instead of either Canio or Tonio, as though Mother Nature herself were saying "Enough!" to all humanity.
• Awesome Music: It's an opera, so there are many great numbers. "Vesti la giubba" stands out in particular.
• Broken Base: Should the last line be given to Canio, as traditionally staged, keeping the focus on the main character? Or should it be given to Tonio, as originally written, forming a Framing Device and emphasizing just how badly Tonio screwed everybody over? It's been staged both ways, with various degrees of effectiveness.
• Complete Monster: The devious, hunchbacked Tonio is an Ur-Example of an evil clown in Western media. A Manipulative Bastard par excellence, Tonio deigns to ruin the life of his co-actor Nedda after his first attempt to seduce her—and subsequently rape her—fail. Tonio poisons the mind of Nedda's husband, Canio, driving him to homicidal insanity with the revelation Nedda is unfaithful to him, before sitting back and watching with cruel satisfaction as the mad Canio murders both Nedda and her lover on-stage. In the original script and many productions afterward, Tonio ends the opera by gloating that "the comedy is finished!" to seal in how thoroughly he has destroyed the main cast. (Although Tito Gobbi, in his book The World Of Italian Opera, suggests that singers playing Tonio should have a My God, What Have I Done? moment at the end. Gobbi, who'd played Tonio, always felt that Tonio wanted to humiliate Nedda, but never wanted it to go THAT far.)
• First Installment Wins: This is the first opera produced by Leoncavallo. It's also the only one that most people will actually witness a live performance of.
• Fridge Brilliance: In the opening scene, when the traveling actors arrive, Tonio tries to help Nedda off the cart she’s sitting in, but Canio pushes him aside, boxes his ears and helps Nedda off himself. This might be explained by the fact that Tonio was in love with Nedda: Canio might have suspected it and that would explain his treatment of Tonio. It would also explain why a villager’s joke that Tonio didn’t want to go to the tavern right away because he wanted to woo Nedda got Canio so angry: he suspected the same thing and wasn’t amused.
• I Am Not Shazam: The character who sings "Vesti la giubba" is not named "Pagliacci." His real name is Canio and the clown character he plays is named Pagliaccio ("clown"). "Pagliacci" is the plural of "pagliaccio," meaning "clowns," and refers to all the principal characters. Nor does Canio sing "Vesti la giubba" wearing his clown costume – that would be his second, lesser-known aria "No! Pagliaccio non son!" which he sings when he snaps during the Show Within a Show in Act II.
• Narm: Depending on the tenor's acting ability, Canio's traditional sobbing at the end of "Vesti la giubba" can either be heartbreaking or unintentionally comic melodrama. For this very reason, it's often been spoofed in pop culture.
• One-Hit Wonder: Leoncavallo composed other pieces, but hardly anyone has ever heard of them. (One of them is a setting of La Bohème, which got good reviews but was Overshadowed by Awesome with Giacomo Puccini's more famous version.) Pagliacci, on the other hand, is one of the most widely performed operas in the repertoire.
• Signature Song: Vesti la Giubba.
• Tear Jerker: The "Vesti la giubba" aria, where Canio sings about how he must play the clown while his heart is breaking, is enough to make entire audiences weep like sixth-grade children.
• Values Dissonance: The opera depicts Tonio's hunched back as something of a Red Right Hand, being a slimy, lecherous monster.

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