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 cliché, 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 façade 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...
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