★★★★☆ Covent Garden’s smart new Cav and Pag is headed south.

Vue Cinema, Piccadilly, London
December 10, 2015

Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, two one-act operas from the 1890s, both have plots that are archetypal 19th-century melodramas. These stories are not burdened by psychological insights, opting for straightforward tales of goodies and badies in which, in these two examples, the baddies triumph so all ends in virtuous melancholy. They are operas about which, let’s be honest, opera buffs sometimes express a touch of condescension; something less demanding for the entertainment of the less discerning.

That is certainly not a view shared by director Damiano Michieletto who is in charge of the current new stagings playing in London’s Royal Opera House and co-produced with, among others, Opera Australia (so watch this space Aussie audiences). Michieletto treats these “old war horses” (to quote the on-screen introduction) with the respect deserved by both the music and the writers’ intention to create opera not about the rich and famous but about “ordinary people”. There are no extravagant re-imaginings nor shock-inducing episodes here, although the period is updated from the 1890s to the 1980s. What is here however is a...