Cavalleria Rusticana Reviews

The celebrated Italian filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli collaborated with the great tenor Plácido Domingo for these two films, which bring a pair of classic operas to life. Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci features Cavalleria Rusticana, Pietro Mascagni's one-act opera starring Domingo as Turiddu, who returns from a hitch in the army to discover that his sweetheart, Lola (Axelle Gall), has taken up with another man; to make her jealous, he begins courting the peasant Santuzza (Elena Obraztsova), not aware that she's genuinely in love with him. Also featured on this release is Ruggiero Leoncavallo's masterpiece Pagliacci, in which Domingo plays Canio, an actor with a jealous streak who learns that his worst fears about his wife, Nedda (Teresa Stratas), are true, and that she's been unfaithful to him with two different men. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide