Good taste, that old killjoy, has done its best to smirch the reputation of the Italian double bill known as Cav and Pag. It hasn’t worked. These operas will never lose their appeal. If anything they have more potency than ever. Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana (1889) and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1892), one-hit wonders for their composers, portray crimes of passion in impoverished village communities, with soaring music to match. The novelty of seeing ordinary people on the operatic stage caused a popular sensation when the works were new. The perceived sleaze and crudities of the stories only added piquancy.
Damiano Michieletto’s 2015 staging, set in a filmic postwar Italy, has returned to the Royal Opera House for its third revival with a star cast, conducted by Daniel Oren. Its depiction of violence to women, perhaps heightened, post #MeToo, by the revival director Noa Naamat, is unsparing. Each opera, in Paolo Fantin’s designs, makes use of a revolve. In Cavalleria rusticana (Rustic chivalry) a statue of the Madonna is carried in front of the village bakery for the Easter parade, while hot adultery plays out behind. The clowns in Pagliacci perform a show in a school hall. Backstage and front swivel cleverly like a sadistic Noises Off.
