Pictured at right and below is a smiling Richard Leech, who plays the eponymous role in Pagliacci. As Canio, he is on one hand a loving husband who adores his wife, and on the other hand he is murderously jealous. As the clown Pagliacci in the Commedia dell'Arte troupe he laughs—yet in real life as Canio he cries. He is both terrifying and pitiable, fierce and vulnerable, introspective and emotive. As a caricature of a character, we may find his emotions funny or evocative, but the persona of Canio is neverthless human—and as such, serves as a mirror for what we all may feel. Penned in the early days of wooden track roller coasters (American roller coasters date from the 1880's, and European Coasters date somewhat earlier), the emotional extremes displayed by Canio, Nedda, and Tonio are as gut-wrenching as the modern Steel Phantom at Kennywood. Andrew Lloyd Weber's Phantom of the Opera is not a roller coaster, does not provide an emotional roller coaster, and is merely a musical about opera, but Pagliacci prominantly features a steel dagger. La analogia è finita.

Canio/Pagliacci must show a multitude of faces in this opera, reflecting the myriad emotions that he feels. I watched Richard Leech as he proceeded through a collection of emotions, and rather than try to describe them, I thought it would just be better to show you...

And all of this without the murders at the end of Act II! What is fascinating to me is that beneath the powerful emotional subtext of this opera, we are told that everything is normal. Regardless of the ups and downs of their personal lives, the show must go on! Canio tells us that actors have feelings, too. Then he tells us that the discord we see in the troupe's players is a mere sham, that everything is really hunky-dory. And because the villagers would rather be fooled than see reality, they believe him—because theatre is all about a willful suspension of disbelief. But what is really interesting is that regardless of this roller coaster of emotion, the bright smiles and the menacing glowers, the actors feelings as people and the actors feelings as players, we are reminded of the happy-happy nature of the Commedia troupe.

Janus is the two-faced god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings in Roman mythology. In Pagliacci we only see one of Janus' faces—we see the end of the troupe (although we can easily imagine how things began). The twinned masks of comedy and tragedy, symbols of the theatre, are also called Janus masks, and unlike these masks, both sides of Pagliacci's drum are the same—smiling, serene, reassuring. The tragicomedic masks are not on the players outwards faces, but in the dichotomy of the real and the acted. The comic face is worn by the parts the actors portray, while tragic face is worn by the actors themselves. Canio and Nedda are two-faced hypocrites (and for you language buffs, the word hypocrite derives from the Greek word hupokrites for "stage-player" or "actor"). The villagers bear the full brunt of this hypocracy—they come to the Commedia expecting a comedy, but witness a tragedy instead.

Fasten your seat belts, and keep your hands inside the car at all times. It's gonna be one heckuva ride!