Next up in Opera Week is perhaps the most celebrated aria in history, and certainly one of my very favorites.

Leoncavallo’s ‘Vesti La Giubba’ wraps up the first act of Pagliacci, a tragic tale of a clown and his unfaithful wife. In this aria, lead character Canio discovers his wife’s infidelity but must go on with the show. Sometimes the English translations of great arias are kind of silly — is she really singing with such passion about a trade agreement? But in this case, the English translation reads as powerful and poignant as the Italian sounds.

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