Duet of Nedda and Silvio (Pagliacci)

Leoncavallo wrote both text and music after the success of Cavalleria rusticana had shown the publisher Sonzogno what a short, violent opera could earn. He maintained that the plot came from a murder case tried by his father, a magistrate in Calabria. The premiere at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on 21 May 1892 was conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. The prologue, delivered before the curtain, states the argument outright — that actors bleed like anyone else — and the two acts then let a stage comedy collapse into the reality it had been imitating.