eo, or clown) loves Nedda (Columbine), the wife of Canio
(Pagliaccio), but she already has a lover in the shape of Silvio, a
young villager, and rejects the clumsy advances of the other with scorn.
Tonio overhears the mutual vows of Nedda and her lover, and bent upon
vengeance, hurries off to bring the unsuspecting Canio upon the scene.
He only arrives in time to see the disappearance of Silvio, and cannot
terrify his wife into disclosing her lover's name, though he is only
just prevented by Beppe, the Harlequin of the troupe, from stabbing her
on the spot. The second act is on the evening of the same day, a few
hours later. The curtain of the rustic theatre goes up and the little
play begins. By a curious coincidence the scheme of the plot represents
something like the real situation of the actors. Columbine is
entertaining her lover Harlequin in the absence of her husband
Pagliaccio, while Taddeo keeps a look-out for his return. When he
returns we see that the mimic comedy is to develop into real tragedy.
Canio scarcely makes a pretence of keeping to his role of Pagliaccio.
Mad with jealousy, he rushes on his wife and tries to make her confess
the name of her lover. She refuses, and in the end he stabs her, while
Silvio, who has formed one of the rustic audience, leaps on to the stage
only to receive his death-blow as well. As in 'Cavalleria,' the theme of
the story is squalid and unpleasant, though lucid and undeniably
effective for stage purposes. The music makes an effective accompaniment
to the exciting incidents of the plot, but it has few claims to
intrinsic interest. Leoncavallo is never much of a melodist, and
'Pagliacci' teems with reminiscences. The opera was probably written in
a hurry, in order to pander to the taste for melodrama which
'Cavalleria' had excited. In 'I Medici' (1893), a tale of the Florentine
Renaissance, Leoncavallo aimed far higher. Here, too, however, his music
is for the most part a string of ill-digested reminiscences, though
scored with such extraordinary cleverness and fertility of resource as
almost to disguise the inherent poverty of the score. 'Chatterton'
(1896) was a failure, but 'La Boheme' (1897), though somewhat cast into
the shade by Puccini's work upon the same subject, scored a decided
success. Leoncavallo's music is conceived in a totally different mood
from that of Puccini. He has little of Puccini's grace and tenderness,
but he treated the scenes of Bohemian life with ama