| Ruggero Leoncavallo |
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Operas
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Zazà is an opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo, with the libretto by the composer. Its première at the Teatro Lirico di Milano on November 10, 1900, starring Rosina Storchio as Zazà, Edoardo Garbin as Milio, Mario Sammarco as Cascart and Clorinda Pini-Corsi as Anaïde, and conducted by Arturo Toscanini, began its triumphant run of performances in opera houses around the world.
Over the next twenty years it received over fifty new productions from Palermo to Paris, Buenos Aires to Moscow, Cairo to San Francisco, arriving at The Metropolitan Opera on January 16, 1920 in a production directed by David Belasco and conducted by Roberto Moranzoni, starring Geraldine Farrar, Giulio Crimi and Pasquale Amato, and later Giovanni Martinelli and Giuseppe de Luca. With La Bohème, Zaza is the opera of Leoncavallo's which most nearly matched the success of Pagliacci.
The story of the opera concerns the French music hall singer, Zazà and her affair and subsequent decision to leave her lover, Milio, when she discovers that he is married. The score is rich with the colorful details of the French music halls where Leoncavallo had spent his early years as a composer.