The Death Of Death

Prologue

As I sat and watched the opera for the first time, I could anticipate

the outcome. The man would catch his wife with another man and would kill

them both. What started as a comedy ends as a tragedy. It was a clich?,

following in the footsteps of every romantic story ever told before it

and every one that is yet to come. Nevertheless, as the end of the opera

neared I could not rid myself of the overwhelming urge to cry. But why

would I cry? I knew that Nedda, the female lead, would die. Was I upset

for her? As I pondered this, the opera ended; it was a superb ending that

left me in tears. It also left me with a bitter taste of self-centered

query that, in the days following the opera, I could not help but to mull

over. Why was I so moved by the death of Nedda? Was it even her death

that bothered me? And then it hit me; I was mortalized by the symbolic

death of Canio and the ultimate revelation as to Tonio?s true identity.

Ruggerio Leoncavallo, in his opera Pagliacci, controls the audience’s

perception of what is really happening in the opera. He leads the

participants to believe that the story of Canio and Nedda is a love story

gone awry, when it is actually a realization of the mortality of all men-a

realization that all men must face, and that all men will suffer. His

intentions are clouded by the trickery of the stagecraft and plot that

apprehends the audience and precludes them from paying attention to the

sub-text of mortality. His real intentions are hidden within the fa?ade

of the character of Tonio. Tonio is the disfigured form of death that has

sought out Nedda as his next victim. Leoncavallo would have us believe

that Tonio is lusting after Nedda and that Nedda refuses Tonio because of

his disfigurement. But within the subtext, one can see that Tonio is Death

and that he has come for Nedda, and when she refuses to embrace Death,

Tonio vows By the Holy Virgin of the Assumption?Ill be revenged upon you”

(MacMurray 397). Death will ultimately get his way twice over.

When Neddas desires for another man get the best of her, Tonio is nearby

and quickly informs Canio, Neddas husband, of her unfaithfulness. Nedda

knows that Tonio has done this when confronted with it, and tells Tonio

that she despises him and he retorts with, “Love me or hate me, it is

nothing to me” (MacMurray 398). Canio, however, is so overwhelmed by

this offering of news that he sings one of the most passionate arias

known to the opera world, Vesti la Giubba , wherein the mortality of

man is first shown. Nedda is Canios life