Dayton Opera - I Pagliacci (The Clowns)

Dayton Opera - I Pagliacci (The Clowns)

Step back with us in time to the small village of Montalba in the 1940's as your Dayton Opera company unfolds a story of unbridled jealousy and passion.  The quintessential Italian melodrama, I Pagliacci (The Clowns), is one of the seminal stories  in all of Opera Literature.

Join us for this great production featuring a sterling cast and the Dayton Opera Chorus.  Come an hour early for a celebration of Italian culture with good, drink , street performers and festive songs from the DP&L stage as a prelude to this fine classic Opera!

Ruggero Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci

A traveling troupe of clowns in sunny southern Italy—a cheery setting, without a doubt.

But behind the scenes, disaster looms.

Tonio opens the short prologue, reminding the audience that actors have feelings, too, and the show is about real people. 

With the vividness and brevity that are the hallmark of the verismo (realistic) style, Leoncavallo’s masterwork quickly sweeps the audience along with its grand tunes and gut-punching heartbreak, climaxing in an onstage murder among the clown troupe as the players gradually veer from their script until the final tragedy occurs. 

Based on a real-life love triangle known to Leoncavallo, whose grandfather served as magistrate at the ensuing trial, I Pagliacci (The Clowns) is by far the composer’s best-known work. Countless audiences know Canio’s heart-wrenching “Vesti la giubba” (“Put on the costume”), which he sings as he prepares for the final performance in which he will confront his wife, Nedda, who is secretly involved with Tonio. Acting for her life, Nedda is unable to calm her enraged husband, who takes his vengeance with a knife in front of the small-town audience gathered for light entertainment. The curtain rings down to one of the best-known closing lines in all of opera: “La commedia è finita” – “The comedy is finished!” 

Links & Tags

The Schuster Center

Dayton Opera - I Pagliacci (The Clowns) is taking place at The Schuster Center, which is located at 1 W 2nd St in Dayton. The Schuster Center - Benjamin and Marian Schuster Performing Arts Center - providing a world-class facility for the best in local, national and international performing artists. Can accommodate up to 2,300 for meetings or 500 banquets.

Dayton Performing Arts Alliance.

Dayton Performing Arts Alliance - The Philharmonic, Ballet, and Opera create art that celebrates life in the Dayton community.

Dayton Opera.

Dayton Opera - Dayton Opera performs in the accoustically-perfect Mead Theatre located in the Benjamin and Marian Schuster Center.