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Tenor Jonathan Burton as Canio in \u201cPagliacci\u201d with Austin Opera in 2023. He will reprise his signature role with San Diego Opera next weekend. (Erich Schlegel)<\/p>\nWhen it comes to challenging operatic roles for tenors, the clown troupe leader Canio in Leoncavallo Ruggero\u2019s beloved 1892 \u201cPagliacci\u201d is right up there.<\/p>\n
It requires power-singing, vocal range and dramatic intensity, as well as acting versatility.<\/p>\n
Just ask tenor Jonathan Burton, who has become one of America\u2019s leading Canios, with 13 productions already under his belt. Next weekend, he\u2019ll add another to the list in San Diego Opera\u2019s season-opening production of \u201cPagliacci,\u201d playing Friday through next Sunday at the San Diego Civic Theatre.<\/p>\n
The Ohio native, who is now 30 years into his singing career, said that even though Canio isn\u2019t as long as some other parts in his repertoire, like Prince Calaf in Puccini\u2019s \u201cTurandot,\u201d it\u2019s no cakewalk.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a shorter role but very intense. I think a role like Canio is like Calaf concentrate. It\u2019s just as hard on you, but it doesn\u2019t take as long,\u201d he joked, in a recent phone interview.<\/p>\n
Tenor Jonathan Burton as Canio in \u201cPagliacci\u201d with Austin Opera in 2023. He will reprise his signature role with San Diego Opera next weekend. (Erich Schlegel)<\/p>\n
San Diego Opera General Director and CEO David Bennett said audiences are in for a treat with Burton.<\/p>\n
\u201cCanio is a challenging role. It requires heft and virility, but also pathos and beauty. Jonathan is considered one of today\u2019s greatest interpreters of the role because of his ability to handle the simultaneous vocal and dramatic challenges,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPagliacci,\u201d the Italian word for clowns, is about a troupe of commedia delle\u2019arte clowns preparing for an outdoor performance in Calabria, Italy, in the late 1860s. Canio, the group\u2019s temperamental leader, is told by troupe member Tonio that he believes Canio\u2019s wife, Nedda, is having an affair with another man. In a fit of fury, Canio vows to discover his wife Nedda\u2019s secret and take revenge. During the opera\u2019s tragic second act, the comic play that the troupe is performing onstage closely mirrors the behind-the-scenes story of Nedda\u2019s supposed extramarital affair and Canio is overtaken by a violent rage.<\/p>\n
\u201cPagliacci\u201d is most famous for Canio\u2019s aria \u201cVesti la giubba\u201d (\u201cPut on your costume\u201d), which closes the first act. As he\u2019s painting a clown smile on his face for the evening\u2019s show, Canio sings about how he must pretend to laugh at the pain that poisons his heart.<\/p>\n
Burton said tenors playing Canio often get compared to the role\u2019s most famous interepreters \u2014 Enrico Caruso and Franco Corelli \u2014 and are often found wanting. But he doesn\u2019t let that affect his approach to the role.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a measure of perfection somewhere in everyone\u2019s mind \u2026 and I\u2019ll be a pale comparison,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you can find a way to be authentic and not strive to be something outside yourself, that\u2019s a way to give the audience an authentic and effective performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/sut-l-stage-pagliacci-scenery2.jpg\")
San Diego Opera\u2019s \u201cPagliacci\u201d production will feature scenery and costumes from Portland Opera\u2019s production, seen here. (Portland Opera)<\/p>\n
To keep the role fresh, Burton said he\u2019s constantly changing it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably sing it differently now than I did it last week. That\u2019s just the way of the voice,\u201d he said. \u201cI would liken it to something like, imagine you have a violin and move around the world to different locations. Some places are hot, some are cold, some are humid and some are dry, and that affects how the violin sounds. Maybe you feel different. Your body\u2019s changing. There\u2019s that aspect of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only is Burton\u2019s vocal performance of Canio always changing, so are directors\u2019 interpretations of the character from production to production. Is Canio the villain? Or is he a victim of Tonio\u2019s Iago-like jealousy-baiting or Nedda\u2019s possible affair?<\/p>\n
\u201cCanio is a very polarizing character,\u201d Burton said. \u201cMy favorite thing about performing this opera is getting to see how many different interpretations or receptions it gets. To some people, he\u2019s sympathetic. To others, they see him as the absolute villain of the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never know which \u2018Pagliacci\u2019 I\u2019m walking into when I take the job. It has evolved in that I\u2019ve done him so many different ways that at this point I\u2019m just sort of fluid and give whatever the individual production calls for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPagliacci\u201d is from the 1890s-born operatic genre known as verismo, which means realism. Previously, operas focused on stories about royal, religious, historical and literary characters. Verismo operas were written about everyday people and their everyday problems.<\/p>\n
Butler said performing verismo characters allows performers more room for artistic interpretation. \u201cThey\u2019re not necessarily good or bad,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re just catching them at a bad moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett said verismo operas are also different in musical style. Instead of the traditional alternation of sung-text recitative and arias (songs), verismo operas are more seamless in how songs are interwoven with the story.<\/p>\n
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Tenor Jonathan Burton will play Canio in San Diego Opera\u2019s \u201cPagliacci\u201d Oct 31-Nov. 2. (San Diego Opera)
\nA life in song<\/p>\n
Burton grew up on Portsmouth, Ohio, where in his teen years he worked as a studio guitarist at a recording company. When that dried up, he decided to try musical theater in high school and took some voice lessons from the music director at a local church. That\u00a0 friendship grew into an in-depth operatic mentorship that led to Burton joining a local Gilbert & Sullivan company. By age 20, he\u2019d already played seven different roles.<\/p>\n
Passing up the slow-paced college route to a career, he began entering vocal competitions and sometimes the prizes were onstage roles which led to more roles with opera companies. Since 2007, he has been performing professionally full time as an opera singer.<\/p>\n
One of his greatest career mentors was conductor Lorin Maazel, who often took Burton along as a vocalist on overseas concert gigs before Maazel passed away in 2014. Since then, most of Burton\u2019s work has been in the United States, which allows him to spend more time with his family (he\u2019s father to four children, ages 13 to 24).<\/p>\n
Except for a career break during the pandemic, Burton has kept busy performing about six or more operas or operatic concerts each year. His favorite role is Dick Johnson in Puccini\u2019s \u201cThe Girl of the Golden West\u201d and he\u2019s thrilled to have made role debuts as Gherman in Tchaikovsky\u2019s \u201cQueen of Spades\u201d in 2021 and Paul in Korngold\u2019s \u201cDie tote Stadt (The Dead City)\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n
Next on his bucket list? The operatic canon of Richard Wagner. \u201cWagnerian roles are the unmounted plateau on the horizon that I think about a lot,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/sut-l-stage-pagliacci-scenery1.jpg\")
San Diego Opera\u2019s \u201cPagliacci\u201d production will feature scenery and costumes from Portland Opera\u2019s production, seen here. (Portland Opera)<\/p>\n
Joining Burton in San Diego Opera\u2019s \u201cPagliacci\u201d are Hailey Clark as Nedda, Kidon Choi as Tonio and Timothy Murray as Silvio. General Director Bennett praised Clark for her \u201csizeable voice with incredible beauty and legato,\u201d Murray\u2019s \u201cbeautiful lyric baritone voice\u201d and Choi\u2019s \u201cwarm, round baritone voice.\u201d The same cast, led by Burton, will perform at all three performance next weekend.<\/p>\n
San Diego Opera\u2019s production will be directed by Christopher Mattaliano and company Principal Conductor Yves Abel will lead the San Diego Symphony. The company is renting scenery and costumes from Portland Opera. \u201cPagliacci\u201d will be sung in its original Italian with English and Spanish supertitles projected above the stage. It will be performed in two acts with an intermission.<\/p>\n
Burton said this will be the first time he\u2019s sung Canio three days in a row, but he\u2019s not concerned about vocal fatigue. And he doesn\u2019t mind that these days opera companies are condensing both their rehearsal and performance schedules to reduce expenses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think overhearsing is a big danger,\u201d he said. \u201cThe fresher and more immediate and palpable you can keep this show for the audience, the more of a powder keg it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/sut-l-opera-fellowtravelers.jpg\")
A scene from Up Until Now Collective\u2019s national touring production of the opera \u201cFellow Travelers,\u201d which San Diego Opera will present July 10-12 at the Balboa Theatre. (Up Until Now Collective)
\nSeason preview<\/p>\n
\u201cPagliacci\u201d is the first of five shows that will make up San Diego Opera\u2019s 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
Rossini\u2019s \u201cThe Barber of Seville\u201d plays Feb. 13-15, 2026, at the Civic Theatre followed by\u00a0 Bizet\u2019s \u201cCarmen\u201d March 27-29 at the Civic. San Diego Opera and La Jolla Music Society are co-producing\u00a0 a one-night-only performance of Damien Geter\u2019s newly commissioned\u00a0 multimedia song cycle \u201cCotton\u201d on Jan. 16 at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla.<\/p>\n
The season concludes with the Gregory Spears-Greg Pierce opera \u201cFellow Travelers.\u201d It\u2019s based on the novel by Thomas Mallon and Showtime miniseries about the 1953 \u201clavender scare,\u201d when Sen. Joseph McCarthy led an effort to root out LGBTQ employees in the federal government. Up Until Now Collective<\/a> is producing a 10th anniversary, 10-city tour of \u201cFellow Travelers\u201d that will stop July 10-12 at the Balboa Theatre.<\/p>\n San Diego Opera\u2019s Bennett praised \u201cFellow Travelers\u201d for having a \u201cremarkably beautiful score, very moving, with unique and immediately accessible vocal writing. It\u2019s also a timely love story, tailor- made for the opera.\u201d<\/p>\n San Diego Opera presents \u2018Pagliacci\u2019<\/p>\n When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 2 p.m. next Sunday\n<\/p>\n Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., downtown<\/p>\n Tickets: $53-$265<\/p>\n