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What do you do when your planned season opener bites the dust? Fly in the stars and put on a concert performance of a verismo favourite. 

Exceptional singing, an auspicious conducting debut and a staging that is both sophisticated and emotionally involving make this production an unequivocal winner.

Mascagni's stirring music and gripping storyline cast their spell over a festival audience at the edge of the Baltic Sea.

Notwithstanding director Pippo Delbono's narcissistic excesses, his staging confirmed itself as effective and penetrating.

Some rousing singing from the RTÉ Philharmonic Choir of the famous choruses from the great operas. 

Tenor-turned-director José Cura transplants the action from southern Italy to Buenos Aires. 

An embarrassingly trite libretto proves unsalvageable, even with a committed cast of singers.

Pippo Delbono, an advocate of experimental theatre, tests the audience's patience at Opera di Roma, masking some enjoyable musical performances.

David McVicar's uninspiring Cavalleria rusticana remains problematic, but a strong Pagliacci leaves the New York audience gasping. 

After its Christmas break, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci return to the Royal Opera in Daminano Michieletto's arresting production. 

Even stronger than first time round, Michieletto's impressive staging is complemented by an outstanding double role debut from Hymel and a heartbreaking Santuzza from Elīna Garanča.

Opera North's Little Greats festival continues with two deeply contrasting short operas - a grimly tragic and austere version of Macagni's Cavalleria rusticana and a frothy and hilarious production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Trial by Jury.

Opera in the City puts two key short works side by side, both duos, to create an evening of contrasting voices in which mature, selfish passion quails before youthful promise. 

For the final week of the CSO season, Muti led a stirring program of operatic excerpts by Verdi, Puccini and Mascagni, along with a rarity by Boito.

This was less a concert of two halves than one of two tenors: able to dramatise the music of Puccini and Verdi far more effectively than his earlier Mozart, Flórez came alive.

A voice with the proportions of a cathedral; a higher register that's entirely secure; an attention to text. Rosenblatt Recitals gave a tantalising preview of a singer who will have a stellar career.

A remarkable performance for State Opera of South Australia from Rosario La Spina as Turiddu in Cavalleria rusticana and Canio in Pagliacci was evidence of the brilliant tenor he has become.

One wonders why Emma Dante's concept, which explores the plight of women crushed by romantic catastrophes, is not done more often.

Damiano Michieletto's inspired intertwining of the standard double-bill of Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci makes for vivid storytelling, the whole supported by an excellent cast solidly directed by Andrea Licata.

Despite occasionally brilliant singing, the Norwegian National Opera fails to raise seasonal spirits with a dramatically inert Cavalleria rusticana and a shaky Pagliacci.

Scottish Opera may be admirably committed to Mascagni's under-appreciated opera, but the musical quality and vision are lacking.

Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra revive Mascagni's Iris in a fully staged version in Frank Gehry's architecturally stunning Richard B Fisher Center at Bard College.

Perhaps not a masterpiece, but worth exploring, Mascagni's Iris returns to Opera Holland Park. 

Welsh National Opera may have reached the ripe old age of seventy but it's very much alive and kicking.

Craig Ogden in Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Guitar Concerto no. 1 is the highlight of the Northern Chamber Orchestra's varied concert of (mostly) Italian music in Macclesfield.

Benjie del Rosario ignites a thrilling Pagliacci, while Cavalleria rusticana is potentially as good but marred by intelligibility and balance issues.

Singing at short notice, Luis Gomes made a fine partner for Ekaterina Siurina at another superb recital in the Rosenblatt Recital series.

Bryan Hymel and Irene Roberts explored the boundaries of love in the latest splendid performance in the Rosenblatt Recitals.

The Met’s revival of David McVicar’s year-old take on the perennial Verismo twins strikes out emotionally in Cavalleria rusticana but scores high in Pagliacci. Working on the same set by Rae Smith, flanked by the forbidding stone walls of the town church, Cavalleria is dark, dark, dark – the very picture of a poor, unhappy Sicilian hill town.

A gripping double bill of  “Cav &Pag” from Italian director Damiano Michieletto at Covent Garden includes a few surprise guest appearances. 

To celebrate its 50th birthday Dutch National Opera put on a festive tribute to the people that have made it the innovative and much-admired house it is today.

Opportunities to see Mascagni's Guglielmo Ratcliff come few and far between, mainly because the title role is an absolute killer for any tenor mad enough to attempt it. Step forward, Angelo Villari...

Mario Martone's Cavalleria rusticana—Pagliacci returns to La Scala, with results that do not always convince. 

The Met's new production of Cav and Pag boasted strong musical performance, but its production, despite some interesting ideas, was not completely successful.

After a slightly disjoined start, the RPO delivered an ultimately satisfying concert with distinctive and involing intepretations of two Romantic warhorses. 

Ailyn Pérez and Stephen Costello open San Diego Opera's season in a generous duo recital.

“Sorry for my meddling. I am the director of this opera.” Before the curtain opens, in a prologue to the prologue, Delbono shows up and addresses the audience. 

Donizetti's darkly comic one act opera Rita is the first fully staged opera presented by San Francisco's New Century Chamber Ensemble. 

After Renée Fleming was forced to withdraw due to a family emergency, soprano Sylvia Schwartz stepped in to perform with the Oxford Philomusica on the way to the Vienna Staatsoper. At just two days’ notice, Korngold, Zandonai and Leoncavallo were traded for Puccini, Verdi and Lehár.

As I left Holland Park after last night’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, I found myself wondering what they’d put in the orchestra’s cups of tea at the interval. Or, perhaps, what was it that conductor Stuart Stratford said to them.

There was more than a little drama at Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja’s sold-out concert recital in Dublin’s National Concert Hall this evening. He was joined by Irish soprano Claudia Boyle and the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Proinnsías Ó Duinn.

Nothing says “Happy Easter” like a bit of alcohol-fuelled murder on the church steps, right? With their new double bill of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci, the Norwegian National Opera certainly seems to think so!The two productions were done on practically the same sets, albeit with a few differences, which did create a rather wonderful sense of continuity from the fir

Choral concerts often have programmes that read like compilation CDs. I don’t mean this negatively: there are countless reasons why a greater number of contrasting pieces is required – timbral, textual, temporal, contextual, historical, and so on.

120 years after the Metropolitan Opera in New York paired Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci in a single performance, the tradition of staging these representative works of verismo opera in a double bill continued this weekend with a production under the direction of Lo Kingman, Hong Kong’s home-grown doyen of opera.

As I made my way to the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a mass of photographers and guests dressed in their evening best waited eagerly by the front doors. Alas, this reception was not for me, but rather for the Prince and Princess of Belgium, the evening’s guests and the very reason behind the concert.

Tenor Joseph Calleja, conductor Giuliano Carella and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra presented an interesting choice of repertoire on Monday. The composers were celebrated Italian and French masters of opera, and the programme alternated between overtures for orchestra and arias starring Calleja.

An old proverb names Munich as the northernmost city in Italy. As odd as this may seem, it makes some sense when considering the arches of the mock-Italian loggia in Odeonsplatz, modeled after the one in the Piazza della Signoria in Florence.

After their Mascagni debut last year, with L’amico Fritz (the composer’s first post-Cavalleria opera), Opera Holland Park have set out to uncover more music from the so-called ‘one-hit-wonder’ – still known to most for his smash verismo opera alone.

​In each case, you know the murder is coming. In each case the music is explosive and closes the opera: there is nothing left to say except Canio's simple words: "La commedia è finita.

This Easter, New Yorkers had a rare chance to hear soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci in Alice Tully Hall. It was only Antonacci’s second appearance in the city, but based on the warm welcome she received from the audience, her reputation preceded her. And by the end of this outstanding recital, it was clear that the city has been missing out on her artistry.