Pagliacci

And then he wheeled, ducked to the girl with a gay little swagger of impudence, threw a lightning glance of scrutiny at her young escort, and turning, was lost in the throng.

The whole incident occupied less than a minute, and presently the four were seated in their box, and the throbbing strains from the overture of I Pagliacci came floating up to them.

"I wish I were a little street gamin in London," said the girl pensively, fingering the violets at her corsage.

"Think of the adventures.

Wow.

And then the great Italian operatic tenor, Enrico Caruso, steps out and sings Pagliacci.

Think about the sheer acoustic power of Enrico Caruso singing Pagliacci at the absolute zenith of his career in a theater packed with patriotic fervor.

The applause must have been deafening.

The acoustic energy in the room would've been intimidating to anyone.

Our New Hampshire landlord, Bill Coleman, was a Boston Globe reporter, and he must have been an opera aficionado because there were many Italian opera recordings mixed in with the popular music in his record stack.

I remember one in particular, Vesti la Juba, from Leon Cavallo's Pagliacci, sung by the great tenor Enrico Caruso.

I found out years later that that recording was the first gramophone record that sold a million copies.

I played lots of Bill Colbin's recordings, but that aria many, many times.

That phrase, play out the play, it's like the headwaters for the more common phrase that later came to be the show must go on.

But there's also another similar phrase from a famous theatrical character that predates it, and that character is the crying clown, Pagliacci.

Oh, from commedia dell'arte.

Yes.

Right? In the 1892 opera of the same name, the clown Pagliacci sings this aria at the end of the first act, and when he's not playing the clown Pagliacci, the character's government name is Canio.

Mm-hmm.

And Canio discovers that his wife is cheating on him, but he still has to go out and put on his show as the funny man clown, Pagliacci.

It's like the meme with the psychiatrist.