Mascagni / Leoncavallo: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci - Zurich Opera Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.5

Mascagni / Leoncavallo: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci - Zurich Opera Blu-ray Movie Review

'Cav/Pag' gets its second outing on Blu-ray, with a formidable pair of performances by Jose Cura.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 26, 2010

Was there a continental sigh of relief when music publisher Eduardo Sonzogno started a competition in hopes of reviving the somewhat moribund Italian opera of 1888? Why should there be a sigh, you might ask. Because Sonzogno commissioned one act operas in his competition. The world was awash in both operatic and balletic spectacles back then, gargantuan productions that would go on for hours, or, in the case of Wagner, days on end. A one-act opera would probably seem like a walk in the park to audiences of the day, and it’s probably no coincidence that the winning opera of Sonzogno’s contest, Cavelleria Rusticana kicked off a whole new fad of shorter pieces, often bracingly “real life” (in relative operatic terms anyway) verismo pieces, the best known of which became Pagliacci. Cavalleria Rusticana has almost always been presented in conjunction with Pagliacci since Sonzogno himself thought of joining the two for one slightly longer evening (still several hours shorter than some Wagner outings). It’s only slightly ironic that Pagliacci’s composer, Ruggero Leoncavallo, made no secret of the fact that he had written his one-act in response to the overwhelming success of previously little known Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. It’s perhaps just a little more ironic that Leoncavallo attempted to write his own companion one-act to pair with his Pagliacci, a piece that has now been forgotten to the vagaries of time. The nicknamed “Cav/Pag” pairing is evidently here to stay.

Paoletta Marrocu as Santuzza, the wronged wife of 'Cavalleria Rusticana'.

While both of these relatively brief pieces (they each clock in at about an hour and fifteen minutes) deal with jealously, love and murder, their tones really couldn’t be more different. Cavalleria Rusticana is an unironic portrait of a tragic ménage-a-trois of sorts. Turiddu (José Cura) had once loved Lola (Liliana Nikteanu) before his military service got in the way. Lola ended up marrying Alfio (Cheyne Davidson), and Turiddu ended up with Santuzza (Paoletta Marrocu). Cavalleria Rusticana plays out in real time in and around Easter as these two mismatched couples find their lives intertwined, leading to a predictably tragic conclusion. This is “kitchen sink” opera, rather prescient in fact of dramatic sensibilities that wouldn’t take hold of traditional, non-sung theater, for another half century or so. Cavalleria is also a fascinating study in Verdian accompaniment. Note, for example, how little actual singing there is in the opening scene. Instead we get a lot of very expressive orchestral playing as Santuzza begins to realize that Turiddu has been unfaithful. This is a brisk and violent journey through some frankly twisted emotions, and it’s rather remarkable that a little known composer, one who would try but fail to recapture his early success with Cavalleria, was able to so aptly capture the furious energy of these characters.

Pagliacci, on the other hand, is all about artifice. This one-act famously opens with an intentionally ironic prologue which both serves as a credo for verismo while simultaneously warning the audience not to take anything too seriously, since everyone know they’re onstage and are playacting. It’s one of the most fascinatingly self-reflective and oppositional moments in all of opera, and it is testament to Leoncavallo (who wrote his own libretto) that the genius of these two completely disparate ideas are presented so naturally and artfully. Pagliacci of course utilizes characters from Commedia dell’Arte in a very non-comedic way, as Canio (Cura), an itinerant actor, becomes enflamed with jealous rage at the thought of losing his wife, Nedda (Florenza Cedolins). Canio is almost the Stanley Kowalski of verismo, a big, brooding character who is violent one moment and then surprisingly vulnerable and heartwrenching the next. Cura plays him for all he’s worth, and delivers a staggeringly effective “Vesti la giubba” to close out Act I.

While both of these presentations use the same unit set, at least for backdrop, they couldn’t be more different in their production design. Cavalleria, as befits its quasi-religious, dour mood, is muted, abrupt, clad in dark colors that are nearly monochrome. Pagliacci bursts off the screen from the prologue’s first moment, a riot of color and energy, big, boisterous and only tangentially incredibly tragic. It’s actually rather remarkable to see this famous pair presented in such disparate manners. Often directors try to “meld” the styles of the two operas to achieve some sort of quasi-cohesive unity (placing Pag’s prologue before Cav is just one example), but here director Grischa Asagaroff seems to exult in the obvious differences between the two and doesn’t shy away from them. Indeed the very different approaches, not just in production design, but in the performances, help to give the evening a remarkable variety of emotional impact. Too often these two done together are two and half hours of relentlessly “down” energy, but after Cav’s admittedly dark opening gambit, even the knowledge of the coming fury of Pag’s ending doesn’t take away from the appropriately circus-like energy which infuses the second half of the pairing.

Cura is formidable in both of these roles, though I personally give the edge to his Canio. Marrocu is beautifully subdued as Santuzza, and Nikiteanu and Davidson do admirable work in roles which can be quite thankless. On the Pag side of things, Cedolins sings wonderfully as Nedda and portrays the fractured soul of this trapped character quite brilliantly. Gabriel Bermudez has energy and charisma galore as Silvio, and Carlo Guelfi is suitably despicable as Tonio.

Leoncavallo may not have gotten his way in terms of crafting an evening featuring solely his creations, but the now standard pairing of Cavalleria Rusticana with Pagliacci proves that over a century later it can still be a one-two punch of rare theatrical power and presence. This Zurich Opera production does both one-acts proud.

Mascagni / Leoncavallo: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci - Zurich Opera Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

These two iconic one-act operas arrive on Blu-ray from ArtHaus Musik with AVC encoded images in 1080i "live" transfers with aspect ratios of 1.78:1. These two operas offer a wonderful example of the versatility of Blu-ray in providing really disparate high definition images. Cavalleria plays out almost entirely in shades of blue, and that tint is gorgeously rendered on this Blu-ray. Even with the dark color scheme, detail is sharp and precise, with wonderfully inky black levels and excellent contrast. Pagliacci, on the other hand, is like a Fellini movie, one audacious color after the next, and all of it perfectly saturated and robustly presented. Note in the prologue how you can virtually count every feather on Tonio's shoulder. Throughout the second presentation, detail is if anything sharper than on Cav, simply because it's so much more brightly lit and the colors are so much more boisterous. Depth of field is really quite remarkable on this Blu-ray as well; make sure to pay attention to the subtly changing cloudscapes that float behind the unit set, especially with the very subtle lighting changes that take place.

Mascagni / Leoncavallo: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci - Zurich Opera Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Both of these pieces are unusually expressive, all the more interesting in that their composers never quite caught the magic a second time despite trying ardently to do just that. We're offered two mostly excellent lossless mixes here, a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix and an LPCM 2.0 stereo fold down. There's virtually nothing to complain about here that's due to the fidelity of the recording. We're offered a crisp and clear accounting of both scores, lushly warm and bracingly emotional. My only qualm has to do with the balance, and I'm virtually positive it's a micing issue. The multi-tiered unit set is really pretty far upstage, and when Cura opens Cav, for example, he's on the second level, probably quite far back from the fly microphones. Therefore he sounds like he's singing from a valley two or three town over. When the actors move downstage, both during Cav, and later in Pag, this problem disappears completely. Both of these scores feature achingly beautiful string sections, and conductor Stefano Ranzani does an admirable job in milking the rubato aspect out of both of these pieces, which the DTS 7.1 mix supports in absolute clarity.

Mascagni / Leoncavallo: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci - Zurich Opera Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on the disc itself, which includes a kind of clunky menu where you have to "exit" each individual opera's menu to get to the other half of the pair. The insert booklet contains the usual essay and synopsis.

Mascagni / Leoncavallo: Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci - Zurich Opera Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Cav/Pag has become an iconic pairing from virtually the first moment the two one-acts were joined at the figurative hip. With a star turn by Cura in the lead roles, and an excitingly varied physical production, this Zurich Opera presentation plays these tragic pieces for all they're worth. These "real life" small scale pieces contain some of the biggest emotions of early 20th century repertoire, and you'll be hard pressed not to have a visceral reaction to them here.