Twin bill of Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” will be shown on Jan. 10 at Greenbelt 3 as part of Season 4 of of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’s Metropolitan Opera in HD.
Opera’s most enduring tragic double bill returns in an evocative new production from Sir David McVicar (Giulio Cesare, Maria Stuarda, Il Trovatore), who sets the verismo action across two time periods but in the same Sicilian setting. Marcelo Álvarez rises to the challenge of playing the dual tenor roles of Turiddu in “Cavalleria Rusticana” and Canio in “Pagliacci.”
Rae Smith (War Horse) has designed the moodily atmospheric 1900 village square setting of “Cavalleria,” which transforms into a 1948 truck stop for the doomed vaudeville troupe of “Pagliacci.”
“Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci” is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play and short story written by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called “Cav/Pag” double-bill with “Pagliacci” by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
The CCP’s Met Opera in HD series features screenings of the latest operatic productions of the Metropolitan Opera in New York through High-Definition digital technology.
Other productions scheduled for screening at Greenbelt 3 are: “Così fan tutte” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) on Feb. 14; “Madama Butterfly” (Giacomo Puccini) on March 14; “Turandot” (Puccini) on April 4; and “Tristan und Isolde” (Richard Wagner) on May 9.
—CONTRIBUTED
Call Greenbelt 3 at 7577883; CCP Sales and Promotions at 8323706; e-mail ccpsalesandpromo@gmail.com.