MUSIC

Opera in the Heights is unique in Houston, because it makes classical opera come alive for everyone—from the opera devotee to the novice. Here, excellence is the essential and the productions are high-energy events in an intimate and unintimidating setting. This is opera for everybody.

September 24 through October 3, Opera in the Heights presents Il Tabarro / Pagliacci, by Giacomo Puccini / Ruggero Leoncavallo. An unforgettable “double bill” of glorious music that will steal your emotions, sung by Oh!’s most outstanding singers. 

Il tabarro (The Cloak) is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on Didier Gold's La Houppelande. It is the first of the trio of operas known as Il trittico. The first performance was given on December 14, 1918 at Metropolitan Opera in New York City

Pagliacci (Players, or Clowns) is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts written and composed by Ruggero Leoncavallo. It recounts the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe. (Its name is sometimes incorrectly rendered as I Pagliacci with a definite article.)

Pagliacci premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 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 created the role of Nedda in London in 1892, soon after its Italian premiere, and in New York in 1893.

It is the only opera of Leoncavallo that is still widely staged.

Click here for a full synopsis of the operas.

Click here for an essay by the maestro.