Leoncavallo: 'Qual Fiamma avea nel guardo' (Pagliacci) | Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chinese New Year

The Italian post-Romantic tradition of verismo, or realist, opera - widespread at the close of the nineteenth century – sought to highlight the lives and struggles of ordinary people. For Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919), inspiration for such an opera came close to home; an incident from his own childhood gave him dramatic material to write the music and libretto for his ninth opera, Pagliacci (1892). Typically paired with Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana (1890) - the iconic double bill of ‘Cav and Pag’ - Pagliacci is Leoncavallo’s only lasting success yet a mainstay of the repertory.

Structured as a play within a play, the opera follows a commedia dell’arte theatrical company which has arrived at a village for an evening performance. The troupe’s leader, Canio, must play the role of a clown (‘Pagliacci’ simply means ‘Clowns’), yet his personal life brings few laughs; after learning that his actress wife, Nedda, has been unfaithful, he is driven by jealousy to murder her and her lover during the troupe’s performance, where reality and the stage collide.

The soprano aria ‘Qual fiamma avea nel guardo’ (‘What fire in his eyes!’), sung towards the beginning of Act One, is our first glimpse into Nedda’s conflicted emotional world. Frightened that Canio has discovered her secret lover, she muses in a nervous recitative, while a dreamy harp-inflected string accompaniment reveals her inner longing to escape her situation.

Yet the calls of nature, heard in trilling violins and fluttering flutes, quickly snap her out of her anxious state and she breaks into a hopeful song (‘Stridono lassu’) which comprises the aria’s second half. Energised by the freedom of the birds that ‘fly through the boundless sky’ (vanno per le vie del ciel), Nedda resolves to pursue her true love in spite of Canio’s threats, and the aria builds towards an assured F sharp major chord conclusion. The titular fire of ‘Qual fiamma’, it seems, has become her own - at least for the time being.