CCP Metropolitan Opera in HD to feature ‘Cav/Pag’

A twinbill of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci—better known as Cav/Pag—will be the second offering of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ (CCP) Metropolitan Opera in HD (high definition) Season 4 at Greenbelt 3 cinemas on January 10. 

A one-act opera featuring the libretto of Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, Cavalleria Rusticana is based on a once-popular short story and play by Giovanni Verga. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, Cavalleria Rusticana premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on May 17, 1890. Since 1893, it has been performed with Pagliacci, which debuted at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 1892.

The twinbill is headlined by tenor Marcelo Álvarez, who plays both Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana and Canio in Pagliacci.

This new production of opera’s most enduring and tragic double bill is directed by Sir David McVicar (Giulio Cesare, Maria Stuarda, Il Trovatore), who sets the verismo action across two time periods, but maintaining the same Sicilian setting.

Rae Smith (War Horse) designed the moodily atmospheric 1900 village square setting of Cavalleria Rusticana that later transforms into a 1948 truck stop for the doomed vaudeville troupe of Pagliacci.

The CCP’s Met Opera in HD series features screenings of the latest operatic productions of the Metropolitan Opera in New York through high-definition digital technology.

Other productions scheduled to be screened at Greenbelt 3 cinemas for 2017 are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Così fan tutte on February 14; Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on March 14 and Turandot on April 4; and Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde on May 9.

For more information, call Greenbelt 3 cinemas customer service hotline at (632) 757-7883 or CCP Sales and Promotions at (632) 832-3706; or send an e-mail to ccpsalesandpromo@gmail.com.