Pagliacci Royal Blue Short Jacket by Richard Tsao

Designer, Richard Tsao took his inspiration for this royal blue short jacket from the costumes and iconic buttons of the commedia dell’arte characters seen in Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci.

Sleek and whimsical it is fully lined with shoulder pads, a fitted bodice, full-length sleeves with fold-back cuffs and colorful silk-covered buttons with loop closures.

It is tailor-made from hand-woven, iridescent Thai silk spun on old-fashioned looms in Thailand.

Please Note: Additional sizes and colors may be available at our store in Lincoln Center. Please call for information or to make an appointment. (212) 799-3100 Extension 2399.

• Hand-woven Thai silk
• Tailor-made
• Dry-clean only
• Sizes S–XL

Cavalleria Rusticana & Pagliacci
Two tales of passion jealousy, and death set in southern Italy, Cav/Pag have been all but inseparable on the opera stages of the world since the Met first presented them as a double bill in 1893. The overwhelming success of Cavalleria was crucial in launching the verismo movement, inspiring other composers (including Leoncavallo) to turn to stories and characters from real life, and often from society’s grungier elements.

Cavalleria Rusticana, World premiere: Teatro Costanzi, Rome, 1890. Met company premiere: Chicago (on tour), December 4, 1891.

Pagliacci, World premiere: Teatro dal Verme, Milan, 1892. Met premiere: December 11, 1893.

Composer
Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945) and Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857–1919) both had substantial operatic careers but were never able to repeat the success of their two youthful hits. Leoncavallo’s setting of La Bohème (which premiered a year after Puccini’s version) is occasionally seen on stage.

Setting
The setting of Cavalleria Rusticana in a Sicilian village is not merely picturesque. The village is, in a sense, a character in the opera—a crude place, untouched by modernity, close to nature’s cycles of life and death and the primitive human rituals associated with them. Pagliacci is originally set in Calabria, the Italian mainland region closest to Sicily. In the Met’s production, the action takes place in the same village across two generations, with Cavalleria set in 1900 and Pagliacci set in 1949.

Met History
The Met was the first opera company to present Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci as a double bill. The program for that notable 1893 performance shows that the now standard order was reversed. While today the operas are rarely performed separately, there have been other intriguing pairings in Met history. The two works individually shared the stage with, among others, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Fille du Régiment, Il Trovatore, Rigoletto, La Bohème, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or, and even Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.