Broken Promises, Toxic Masculinity and Betrayal at Chicago Lyric Opera

Cav/Pag strikes again.

Cav/Pag is the irreverent nickname for a classic double bill of two one-act operas, Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. First presented together by the Metropolitan Opera in 1893, these operas are often paired together, having been born of the late 19th-century Italian operatic style known as verismo. At the time, composers and lyricists were moving away from grand historical or mythological themes to depict the lives of ordinary, often lower-class, people. These new, more modern stories were emotional, passionate and dramatic, or as we say it now: messy.

The night opens with Cavalleria Rusticana by composer Pietro Mascagni. Written in 1889, the curtain rises on a beautifully rendered Sicilian village by set and costume designer Michael Yeargan on Easter morning.  Santuzza, sung with a pure soprano by Yulia Matochkina, is a young woman searching for the lover, Turiddu, who has spurned her.  He’s left her with a grim future, and she begs his mother, Mama Lucia (a warm Lauren Decker) for help finding him. Santuzza’s pathetic tale unfolds as the village around them celebrates Easter: Turiddu, whose selfishness is played beautifully by SeokJong Baek, has left her for his old girlfriend, Lola (a charming Camille Robles) who happens to be married to Alfio (Quinn Kelsey) the local mafioso. Turiddu and Lola are unmoved by Santuzza’s predicament, so she tells Alfio what is going on under his very nose. The results are what you’d expect – though the climax occurs offstage.

Mascagni’s score is a sweeping, emotional ride all its own, and beautifully sung. That said, the immediately dramatic plot felt like a remnant of an earlier time. It was easy to see how the kind of heightened emotions led to Italian stereotypes – I found myself wondering how long poor Santuzza was going to have to stagger despondently about the stage, however richly it was appointed. The Easter celebrations that go on in the background are beautiful and the whole air of the show was vibrant and joyful, creating a beautiful juxtaposition with Santuzza’s despair.

Pagliacci has a decidedly different air. The staging is a vaguely WW2 era Sicily – destitute, hot, desperate. It opens with a wonderful solo by returning singer Quinn Kelsey as Tonio – who trades in his mafioso swagger for a malevolent clown and tells the audience what we can expect. Then the action begins when a traveling circus troupe arrives in a Sicilian village. The leader is Canio (a powerful Russell Thomas) who quickly launches into a song about his obsessive, oppressive love for his leading lady, Nedda (a lush Gabriella Reyes). Unbeknownst to them both, Tonio is also in love with Nedda, and soon aggressively shares his love with her, only to be decidedly rejected. The creeping, jealous Tonio spies on Nedda, and learns she is in fact having an affair with a local named Silvio (Luke Sutliff in his Lyric debut).  Tonio arranges for Canio to catch the lovers in the affair, and then, in true Iago style, manipulates Canio into carrying on with the show planned for that night for the villagers. In a dark twist of fate, the show is the story of a clown whose wife betrays him. It’s too much for Canio, and the show ends in violence.

It is a testament to the intensity and power of Thomas and Kelsey, that despite the fact that they spend most of the play dressed like clowns, they both have a physical presence that is utterly terrifying, and voices that burn with rage and pain. Reyes is a match for them, her rich voice and physicality display a fierce desire to make her own choices, despite the danger she knows she is courting.

The theme that struck me, as a modern viewer more than one hundred years after the debut of both operas, was the utter toxicity of the men. The women are possessions: beautiful, desired, and utterly powerless. Pitiable Santuzza makes one of the only choices available to her and is left just as alone as she was in the beginning. Nedda refuses to be cowed, insists on finding her own little piece of joy, and the men in her life cannot let that stand. They’d rather she die than make her own choice. The grand music, excellent acting and beautiful staging highlight the core of both stories. They are both couched in real, human emotion and choices, just as the verismo style intended. Thomas’s performance of “Vesti la giubba” when he shares his rage and heartbreak upon discovering his wife’s betrayal, is heartbreaking. Matochkina’s voice is raised in utter despair on the holiest of days, and it is a real, timeless despair of so many countless women who have found themselves in her shoes. But, with the vision of more than a century, the chilling truth is that for Canio, the betrayal of his wife is not something he sees as the choice of an equal, but the loss of a possession that should only be his. Only faced with his own mortality, can Turiddu acknowledge that he used Santuzza poorly, and that she will pay for his callousness for the rest of her life.

Leaving the theater, I was struck by the power of both scores and by the way the interpretation of the operas has grown in depth as the years have passed. As old as the stories are, as over the top as the drama was, my heart was in my throat when they came to an end. The beautiful staging, fantastic chorus and emotional performances carry each story easily into another century of song.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia

Presented at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The eight performances are November 1, 4, and 7^th at 7:30pm and Matinees on the 9, 12, 15, 20 and 23. To buy tickets, visit https://www.lyricopera.org/shows/upcoming/2025-26/cavalleria-rusticana-pagliacci/ Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.