“Stiff upper lip!”, my father used to proclaim, as I bemoaned rugby wounds, romantic disaster or a disappointing red wine. A hundred years earlier, Ruggero Leoncavallo had his cuckolded clown, Canio, sing much the same thing, albeit phrased with more Italian elegance, in “Vesti la giubba”. Pagliacci shot Leoncavallo to stardom, though as was recently dramatised in That Bastard, Puccini!, genius never again struck and the composer is inextricably linked with Mascagni through the glorious double-bill of “Cav and Pag”.
Inextricably, but not in English Touring Opera’s spring 2026 season. Now based in Sheffield, ETO brought Pagliacci back to their old base at the Hackney Empire in Eleanor Burke’s sizzling production that takes the work’s themes – jealousy, heartbreak, envy – and places them in a very modern ‘celeb’ setting. Burke’s prologue is a press conference for a forthcoming one night only show, featuring two star actors: Tonio leading confidently, a flamboyant Beppe mithering on one side, and on the other, the old lion, Canio, Burtonesque, groaning and writhing with dismay as his marriage to Nedda teeters on the brink. He revives, straightens and delivers his lines to the press from his cards.
It’s a confident start and, though one might bemoan the opera being performed in a (slightly loose) English translation, the immediacy is effective. From there, the long descent to death – Tonio makes his move on Nedda during an impromptu script run-through, Nedda ruminates on the effect that separation may have upon her career, Canio finally unzips the costume he must put on only to discover that it is identical to what he is already wearing. The dénouement sees Nedda strangled with a telephone wire on the neon pink set of the kitchen drama, though curiously Silvio survives.
As a meditation on the public suffering that high profile couples endure – the intrusion into their private lives, the pressures that it causes and the potential effects that a messy separation can have – it is well-conceived and skilfully effected. Two criticisms: firstly, the use of the small chorus – effective as the troupe in the first half – becomes a slightly awkward surrealist device in the second half. It doesn’t work, and feels like an additional attempt to be clever that has misfired. Secondly, no doubt due to budgetary constraints, the opera is performed on its own, save for a brief and very worthy fifteen minute take on the work in partnership with Streetwise Opera’s Reimagining the Classics series, after which there is a forty-five minute interval before the main event starts, punctuated by a second interval after Act I. It felt rather like a clumsy way of padding out a short evening.
ETO has assembled a reasonable cast, but the musical laurels of the production belong to ETO’s music director, Gerry Cornelius, who drew a lush and pointed performance from the orchestra – rich strings, wafting woodwind and commendable brass. If there were one or two moments where stage and pit were fighting for volume, this was forgivable. Ronald Samm brought a weariness to Canio, married to a forceful high register. Diction was strong and delivery pointed. His “Vesti la giubba” was theatrical without being melodramatic, well phrased and coloured. Singing Nedda, Paula Sides was a tad underpowered at the bottom of the voice, but soared at the top, giving us a forceful, but not mercurial actress. Her Nedda is not a game-player, but a victim of a system which has tied her to a desiccated marriage. Baritone Matthew Siveter performed Tonio in a softer, less abrasive style than is occasionally done. Here, no physical deformity holds Tonio back, but instead a lack of confidence and unrequited affection fuse into an ugly bitterness, which Siveter conveyed with nuance. In the smaller roles, Danny Shelvey and Harry Grigg acquitted themselves commendably as Silvio and Beppe. A fine company effort that punches above its weight.
