Tragedy in opera can deliver an emotional sucker punch like no other medium. Usually, the music is to blame. But when the main characters also work in a clown troupe and must continue to entertain while their own lives fall apart — as in Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (Clowns) — the tragedy is that much more devastating.
Opera Vermont brings Leoncavallo’s classic to Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro for two performances this weekend. Founder and director Joshua Collier, who never met an opera he didn’t want to make more appealing for contemporary audiences, is taking the 1892 work’s verismo style to another level. In his updated version, the clowns are a circus troupe, and three veterans of Greensboro’s Circus Smirkus will join the cast of five professional singers to perform acts of aerialism, juggling, acrobatics, contortionism and clowning.
Partly inspired by the venue — Highland was built with a ceiling grid rated for indoor rigging — Collier said he is “looking to build bridges within the community.” His version of the opera marries two “virtuosic and extravagant” art forms, and it joins the state’s youngest opera company (launched as Barn Opera in 2018) with its venerable circus arts school, founded in 1987. The augmented libretto even includes references to the nearby Highland Lodge, maple syrup and the Northeast Kingdom, the setting of the venue as well as the opera’s plot.
When Circus Smirkus’ new executive director, Rachel Schiffer, met with Collier about Pagliacci, his plan to blend opera and circus made perfect sense to her. Before joining Smirkus’ administration, Schiffer performed across Europe in a troupe with three other circus artists, one of whom was a tenor. The latter would sing opera arias while riding a bicycle on which two of the other artists balanced.
Pagliacci‘s circus performers won’t sing. That will be left to tenor Edward Brennan, as troupe leader Canio; soprano Kathleen Echols, as Canio’s wife, Nedda; baritone Brad Noffsinger Morrison, as Tonio, who lusts for Nedda and pretends to be Canio’s friend; baritone Andrew Wannigman, as Nedda’s secret lover, Silvio; and tenor Diego Valdez, as Canio’s friend Beppe. The circus artists, all former Big Top Tour members, are Maia Castro-Santos, an aerial silks and trapeze artist, and Ivan Jermyn, an acrobat and clown, both of Burlington; and Naomi Eddy, a contortion specialist from Philadelphia.
The opera will be fully staged and sung in Italian with English supertitles. Music director Cailin Marcel Manson will conduct a 10-piece orchestra, including musicians from his New England Repertory Orchestra in Springfield, Mass. Collier’s score borrows selections from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, a short opera often paired with Pagliacci, to flesh out its length without changing the storyline. Opera fans will “hear the traditional music you want to hear” and then some, Collier said, while others can enjoy “the contemporary feel.”
Collier updated the opera to correct a lacuna in the storyline, he said. In the original, “we don’t get to see why Nedda is having an affair. I feel like we villainize her.” In his version, the first act is a rehearsal for the show-within-the-opera that makes up the second act. During the rehearsal, audiences learn Nedda’s backstory: Her husband, the troupe leader Canio, is obsessed with the circus, and she realizes it has changed their relationship. Silvio has offered to bring her to a cabin in the Vermont woods, but then their infidelity is discovered.
“The tragic ending will be particularly impactful because it blurs the line between [Canio’s] performance persona and his real emotions,” Collier said. Like the production’s own cast, the circus artists in the opera are dealing with tiring travel schedules and complicated personal lives but must pretend all is well onstage. At least until the breaking point.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Send in the Clowns: Opera Vermont and Circus Smirkus Join Forces in Pagliacci”
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
