Born in Naples, Ruggero Leoncavallo started his musical studies right around the time that some of Wagner’s most important operas were being premiered, including Tristan und Isolde (1865) and excerpts from the Ring cycle. The impact of such works made a deep impression on him, and he incorporated aspects of Wagner’s style into his own compositions. He was sufficiently inspired by the concept of the Ring that he even set out to compose his own operatic cycle (though of three operas, rather than four), but his motivation on this project waned and he never completed it. Nonetheless, his output is impressive, consisting of about twenty operas and operettas; even though most of these are now forgotten, many enjoyed considerable success while Leoncavallo was alive.
I Pagliacci (The Clowns), his masterwork, focuses on a group of actors. Canio, their leader, becomes overwhelmed with rage when he learns that his wife is having an affair with a fellow cast member. His aria at the end of the first act, "Vesti la giubba (On with the motley)," as he tries to come to terms with the tragedy of his situation, features one of opera’s best known sound bytes. At the end of the opera, Canio stabs both his wife and her lover in the middle of one of the troupe’s "performances," then solemnly tells the audience, "The comedy is over." The story owes more to the Italian verismo (realism) movement than to Wagner, but the German composer’s musical influence is felt in the beautiful Intermezzo that opens the second act. In particular, the angelic multi-part violin writing and approach to chromatic harmony are reminiscent of the prelude to Act I of Wagner’s Lohengrin.