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''Pagliacci'' ((:paʎˈʎattʃi), meaning "Clowns")〔The title is sometimes incorrectly rendered in English with a definite article as ''I pagliacci''. "Pagliacci" is the Italian plural for "clowns", and "i" is the corresponding plural definite article. In correct Italian, an article is put in front of the noun, but the article is not applicable here.〕 is an Italian opera in a prologue and two acts, with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It is the only Leoncavallo opera that is still widely staged. It is often staged by opera companies as a double bill with ''Cavalleria rusticana'' by Mascagni, known as ''Cav and Pag''. ''Pagliacci'' premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on 21 May 1892, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, with Adelina Stehle as Nedda, Fiorello Giraud as Canio, Victor Maurel as Tonio, and Mario Ancona as Silvio. Nellie Melba played Nedda in London in 1892, soon after its Italian premiere, and was given in New York on 15 June 1893, with Agostino Montegriffo, as Canio. ==Composition history== Around 1890, when Pietro Mascagni's ''Cavalleria rusticana'' premiered, Leoncavallo was a little-known composer. After seeing Mascagni's success, he decided to write an opera in response: one act composed in the verismo style. Leoncavallo claimed that he based the story of ''Pagliacci'' on an incident from his childhood: a murder in 1865, the victim of which was a Leoncavallo family servant, Gaetano Scavello. The murderer was Gaetano D'Alessandro, with his brother Luigi an accomplice to the crime. The incident resulted from a series of perceived romantic entanglements involving Scavello, Luigi D'Alessandro, and a village girl with whom both men were infatuated.〔Dryden, p. 5.〕 Leoncavallo's father, a judge, was the presiding magistrate over the criminal investigation. Upon learning of the plot of Leoncavallo's libretto in an 1894 French translation, the French author Catulle Mendès thought it resembled his 1887 play ''La Femme de Tabarin'', such as the play-within-the-play and the clown murdering his wife. Mendès sued Leoncavallo for plagiarism. The composer pleaded ignorance of Mendès' play.〔 Later there were counter-accusations that Mendès' play resembled that of Don Manuel Tamayo y Baus' ''Un Drama Nuevo'' (1867). Mendès dropped his lawsuit. However, the scholar Matteo Sansone has suggested that, as Leoncavallo was a notable student of French culture, and lived in Paris from 1882 to 1888, he had ample opportunity to be exposed to new French art and musical works. These would potentially have included Mendès' play, another version of ''La femme de Tabarin'' by Paul Ferrier, and ''Tabarin'', an opera composed by Émile Pessard that was based on Ferrier's play. Sansone has elaborated on the many parallels among the Mendès, Ferrier, and Pessard versions of the Tabarin story and ''Pagliacci'', noting that Leoncavallo deliberately minimised any sort of connection between his opera and those earlier French works. Leoncavallo originally titled his story ''Il pagliaccio'' (''The Clown''). The baritone Victor Maurel, who was cast as the first Tonio, requested that Leoncavallo change the title from the singular ''Il pagliaccio'' to the plural ''Pagliacci'', to broaden dramatic interest from Canio alone to include Tonio (his own role).〔Dryden, p. 37.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pagliacci」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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