Pagliacci Italian premiere, and it was given in New York on 15 June 1893, with Agostino Montegriffo as Canio. Around 1890, when Pietro Mascagni's "Cavalleria rusticana" premiered, Leoncavallo was a little-known composer. After seeing Mascagni's success, he decided to write an opera in response: one act composed in the verismo style. Leoncavallo wrote that he based the story of "Pagliacci" on an incident from his childhood: a murder in 1865, the victim of which was a Leoncavallo family servant, Gaetano Scavello. The murderer was Gaetano D'Alessandro, with his brother Luigi an accomplice to the crime. The incident resulted from a series
Luis Lima Luis Lima Luis Lima (born 12 September 1948 in Córdoba, Argentina) is an Argentine operatic tenor, who studied in Buenos Aires under Carlos Guichandut and in Sicily under Gina Cigna. He made his opera debut in 1974, in Lisbon, in "Cavalleria rusticana", and since then sang in seventy-seven performances at the Metropolitan Opera (from 1977 to 2001) in nine different roles, starting with Alfredo Germont in "La traviata". He has also sung with the New York City Opera (1978–79, debuting in "Madama Butterfly"), at the Teatro alla Scala (first appearing in "Lucia di Lammermoor", 1977) and the Royal Opera House,