Antonio Pappano, Covent Garden's music director, has already called the Royal Opera's new production of Leoncavallo's Pagliacci "an indulgence." "A luxury" or "an extravagance" might be a better description, depending on how you view the evening, for this is opera at its most grandiose, though not necessarily at its best.
Pagliacci is given here on its own, without its usual companion piece, Cavalleria Rusticana, which many consider the better score. Leoncavallo's division of the work into two acts, usually ignored, has been restored.
The production essentially forms a vehicle for Placido Domingo, who sings Canio in a starry cast for some performances and conducts another starry line up in others.
Franco Zeffirelli's staging, meanwhile, was first seen in Rome in 1992, though this is its first UK outing. In many respects, it takes theatrical realism to extremes.
Pagliacci opens with the clown Tonio telling us we are about to witness "a fragment of life". Zeffirelli, however, seemingly attempts to present us with life almost in its entirety.
The opera has been relocated to modern Naples. Every chorus member and extra has been given an individualised character. Teenagers skateboard round the set. Hookers stand in doorways guarded by leather-clad pimps. A tenement block rears upwards at the back with a different drama being enacted in each apartment.
Zeffirelli's point is that the opera's tragedy is only one among many being played out simultaneously. The end result, however, is at times maddening to watch. Endless distractions detract from the narrative. Extras sweep on and off stage during monologues and moments of genuine repose in the score.
At one point Zeffirelli loses the plot altogether: given that Pagliacci turns on the fact that the affair between Nedda and Silvio must be kept secret, it seems incongruous to watch them well-nigh copulating in an open street.
Musically, however, the evening is fairly strong. Domingo's voice may have lost some of its burnished sound of late, but his sensitivity is undiminished and his Canio remains a frightening portrait of psychological disintegration.
Angela Gheorghiu is a sluttish, temperamental Nedda and Dmitri Hvorostovsky a remarkably sexual Silvio. The pair of them generate a real erotic charge in their love duet.
Once past a nervous start, Lado Anateli is a sinister Tonio. Pappano conducts the score with a fiery brilliance and the playing, all sensual strings and baleful woodwind, is exceptional. Other productions have come closer to capturing Pagliacci's essence, but anyone who equates opera with excess will love this.
· In rep until July 20. Box office: 020-7304 4000.
