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In Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana – Rustic Chivalry – a jealous husband metes out murderous revenge on his wife's lover, and in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci – Players – another jealous husband (part of a travelling troupe) wreaks fatal vengeance on his actress wife as the horrified audience look on.

Set in the impoverished Italian south and with sumptuous orchestration and big hits like Cav's Easter Hymn and Pag's impassioned tenor aria 'Vesti la giubba', Cav & Pag have been thrilling audiences since the 1890s as love, jealously and vengeance propel opera's most enduring double bill to its grisly ends. Recorded in July, Antonio Pappano conducts this Olivier Award-winning production.

Introduced by Flora Willson in conversation with Roger Parker and including contributions from Antonio Pappano and Giuseppe Crimaldi, journalist on Naples' most read newspaper, Il Mattino.

Pietro Mascagni: Cavalleria rusticana
Turiddu…..SeokJong Baek (tenor)
Santuzza…..Aleksandra Kurzak (soprano)
Alfio…..Dimitri Platanias (baritone)
Lola…..Aigul Akhmetshina (mezzo-soprano)
Mamma Lucia…..Elena Zilio (mezzo-soprano)

7.55 pm
Interval
Flora Willson and Roger Parker discuss how Cav & Pag, with their gritty realism, violence and dispossessed, low-life characters, set the template for verismo opera. And Flora asks Giuseppe Crimaldi about the clichéd and long-held northern Italian attitude towards the south and how the 'Southern Question' still looms large in 21st-century Italy.

8.10 pm
Ruggero Leoncavallo: Pagliacci
Canio…..Marco Berti (tenor)
Tonio…..Dimitri Platanias (baritone)
Nedda…..Aleksandra Kurzak (soprano)
Silvio…..Mattia Olivieri (baritone)
Beppe…..Egor Zhuravskii (tenor)
Two Villagers….. Andrew O'Connor (tenor) & Olle Zetterström (bass)

Chorus & Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

Read the full synopsis on the Royal Opera House website: https://bit.ly/3BnK6Iz