Clowns

On Friday 30 January 2026, at 9:00 p.m., the Cilea Theatre in Reggio Calabria will host Clowns, an opera in a prologue and two acts with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo, conducted by Maestro Filippo Arlia and directed by Mario De Carlo.

Inspired by a real crime that took place in Montalto Uffugo, the opera tells the story of Canio and Nedda's small travelling theatre company, amid betrayals, jealousies and passions that overwhelm the stage fiction. In the famous moment of 'Vesti la giubba', Canio prepares to play a betrayed husband, but reality bursts onto the stage and transforms the comedy into tragedy, directly involving the audience.

Dynamic and intense, Clowns is a meta-opera in which reality and fiction intertwine, and opera and circus merge into a thrilling spectacle, with a veil of tissue paper separating comedy from tragedy, heightening the emotion and tension of each scene.