Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo was born on April 23, 1857, and died on August 9, 1919. He was an Italian opera composer and librettist, meaning he wrote both the music and the texts for operas. During his career, Leoncavallo created many operas and songs. However, his most famous work is the opera Pagliacci, which he composed in 1892. This opera became his most lasting achievement, even though he tried to create other successful works.

Today, Pagliacci remains one of the most well-known and frequently performed operas. Other important works by Leoncavallo include the song "Mattinata," which became popular because of the singer Enrico Caruso. He also wrote his own version of La bohème, but this work was not as famous as the version composed by Giacomo Puccini.

Biography

Ruggero Leoncavallo was born on April 23, 1857, in Naples, which was then the capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. His father, Vincenzo Leoncavallo, was a police magistrate and judge. As a child, Leoncavallo moved with his father to the town of Montalto Uffugo in Calabria, where he lived during his teenage years. In 1868, he returned to Naples, where he became a student at the San Pietro a Majella Conservatory. From 1876 to 1877, he studied literature with the famous Italian poet Giosuè Carducci at the University of Bologna. He also lived in Potenza from 1876 until 1878.

In 1879, Leoncavallo’s uncle Giuseppe, who worked in Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, suggested that his nephew move to Cairo to show his piano skills. Ruggero Leoncavallo arrived in Egypt shortly after the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II replaced Khedive Ismail with his son, Tewfik Pasha. Mahmud Hamdi Pasha, the teenage brother of the new Khedive, chose Ruggero Leoncavallo to be his private musician. His time in Egypt ended in mid-1882 when British forces intervened in the Urabi revolt in Alexandria and Cairo. Leoncavallo fled and traveled to France. In Paris, he lived in Montmartre.

An agent in the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis helped Leoncavallo find work as an accompanist and instructor for artists who performed in Sunday concerts at cafés. In Paris, he met the singer Berthe Rambaud, who became his preferred student. They became partners in Paris in 1888 and married in Milan in 1895. Inspired by French romantic writers like Alfred de Musset, Leoncavallo began writing a musical piece based on Musset’s poetry, called La nuit de mai. He completed the work in Paris in 1886, and it premiered in April 1887 to praise from critics. With this success and enough money saved, Leoncavallo moved to Milan with Rambaud in 1888.

Back in Italy, Leoncavallo taught and tried to get his operas produced, including Chatterton. In 1890, he saw the success of Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and quickly created his own opera, Pagliacci. Leoncavallo claimed the story came from a real murder trial in Montalto Uffugo, where his father had worked as a judge. Pagliacci was performed in Milan in 1892 and became his most famous work. Its most famous song, “Vesti la giubba,” was recorded by Enrico Caruso and is believed to be the first record to sell a million copies.

In 1893, Leoncavallo’s I Medici was also performed in Milan, but it was not as popular as Pagliacci. Chatterton was produced later in 1896 but also did not last. Parts of Chatterton were recorded by the Gramophone Company in 1908 and remastered on CD in the 1990s. Leoncavallo conducted or supervised the recordings.

In 1897, Leoncavallo’s La bohème was performed in Venice, but it was overshadowed by Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème, which had been performed earlier in Turin. Two tenor songs from Leoncavallo’s version are still sometimes performed, especially in Italy.

Other operas by Leoncavallo in the 1900s included Zazà (based on a famous performance by Geraldine Farrar) and Der Roland von Berlin. In 1906, he brought musicians from La Scala to perform his music in New York and toured the United States. His opera Zingari had a long run in London but later disappeared from the repertoire.

After writing several operettas, Leoncavallo tried one last serious work, Edipo re. It was long believed that Leoncavallo finished the music but died before completing the orchestration, which was later finished by Giovanni Pennacchio. However, a biography by Konrad Dryden suggested that Leoncavallo may not have written the opera at all. Dryden noted that no letters from Leoncavallo about the work were found, and no notes by him were in the score. Pennacchio may have completed the work using Leoncavallo’s earlier music.

Leoncavallo died on August 9, 1919, in Montecatini Terme, Tuscany. His funeral was held two days later, with hundreds in attendance, including composer Pietro Mascagni and rival Giacomo Puccini. He was buried

Operas

• Pagliacci – 21 May 1892, Teatro Dal Verme, Milan.
• I Medici – 9 November 1893, Teatro Dal Verme, Milan. (The first part of the trilogy Crepusculum, which was not completed.)
• Chatterton – 10 March 1896, Teatro Argentina, Rome. (A revised version of a work first written in 1876.)
• La bohème – 6 May 1897, Teatro La Fenice, Venice.
• Zazà – 10 November 1900, Teatro Lirico, Milan.
• Der Roland von Berlin – 13 December 1904, Königliches Opernhaus, Berlin.
• Maïa – 15 January 1910, Teatro Costanzi, Rome.
• Zingari – 16 September 1912, Hippodrome, London.
• Mimi Pinson – 1913, Teatro Massimo, Palermo. (A revised version of La bohème.)
• Mameli (about Goffredo Mameli) – 27 April 1916, Teatro Carlo Felice, Genoa. (The Fondazione Leoncavallo considers this an opera, not an operetta.)
• Edipo re – 13 December 1920, Chicago Opera. (Produced after the composer’s death. The orchestration was not completed by Leoncavallo; it was finished or possibly composed by Giovanni Pennacchio.)

Operettas

• La Jeunesse de Figaro – 1906, New York.
• Malbrouck – January 19, 1910, Teatro Nazionale in Rome.
• La Reginetta delle Rose – June 24, 1912, Teatro Costanzi in Rome.
• Are You There? – November 1, 1913, Prince of Wales Theatre in London.
• La Candidata – February 6, 1915, Teatro Nazionale in Rome.
• Prestami Tua Moglie – September 2, 1916, Casino delle Terme in Montecatini. (English title: Lend Me Your Wife)
• Goffredo Mameli – April 27, 1916, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa.
• A Chi la Giarrettiera? – October 16, 1919, Teatro Adriano in Rome. (English title: Whose Garter Is This?) Produced after the composer's death.
• Il Primo Bacio – April 29, 1923, Salone di Cura in Montecatini. Produced after the composer's death.
• La Maschera Nuda – June 26, 1925, Teatro Politeama in Naples. Produced after the composer's death.

Other works

• "La nuit de mai" – a symphonic work for tenor and orchestra based on the writing of Alfred de Musset, first performed in Paris in 1886. It was later performed and recorded again in 1990 and, with Plácido Domingo, in 2010.
• "Séraphitus Séraphita" – a symphonic poem based on the writing of Honoré de Balzac, first performed at Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1894.