Tenor bringing his signature role to San Diego Opera’s ‘Pagliacci’

When it comes to challenging operatic roles for tenors, the clown troupe leader Canio in Leoncavallo Ruggero’s beloved 1892 “Pagliacci” is right up there.

It requires power-singing, vocal range and dramatic intensity, as well as acting versatility.

Just ask tenor Jonathan Burton, who has become one of America’s leading Canios, with 13 productions already under his belt. Next weekend, he’ll add another to the list in San Diego Opera’s season-opening production of “Pagliacci,” playing Friday through next Sunday at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

The Ohio native, who is now 30 years into his singing career, said that even though Canio isn’t as long as some other parts in his repertoire, like Prince Calaf in Puccini’s “Turandot,” it’s no cakewalk.

“It’s a shorter role but very intense. I think a role like Canio is like Calaf concentrate. It’s just as hard on you, but it doesn’t take as long,” he joked, in a recent phone interview.

San Diego Opera General Director and CEO David Bennett said audiences are in for a treat with Burton.

“Canio is a challenging role. It requires heft and virility, but also pathos and beauty. Jonathan is considered one of today’s greatest interpreters of the role because of his ability to handle the simultaneous vocal and dramatic challenges,” Bennett said.

“Pagliacci,” the Italian word for clowns, is about a troupe of commedia delle’arte clowns preparing for an outdoor performance in Calabria, Italy, in the late 1860s. Canio, the group’s temperamental leader, is told by troupe member Tonio that he believes Canio’s wife, Nedda, is having an affair with another man. In a fit of fury, Canio vows to discover his wife Nedda’s secret and take revenge. During the opera’s tragic second act, the comic play that the troupe is performing onstage closely mirrors the behind-the-scenes story of Nedda’s supposed extramarital affair and Canio is overtaken by a violent rage.

“Pagliacci” is most famous for Canio’s aria “Vesti la giubba” (“Put on your costume”), which closes the first act. As he’s painting a clown smile on his face for the evening’s show, Canio sings about how he must pretend to laugh at the pain that poisons his heart.

Burton said tenors playing Canio often get compared to the role’s most famous interepreters — Enrico Caruso and Franco Corelli — and are often found wanting. But he doesn’t let that affect his approach to the role.

“There’s a measure of perfection somewhere in everyone’s mind … and I’ll be a pale comparison,” he said. “But if you can find a way to be authentic and not strive to be something outside yourself, that’s a way to give the audience an authentic and effective performance.”

To keep the role fresh, Burton said he’s constantly changing it up.

“I probably sing it differently now than I did it last week. That’s just the way of the voice,” he said. “I 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’s changing. There’s that aspect of it.”

Not only is Burton’s vocal performance of Canio always changing, so are directors’ interpretations of the character from production to production. Is Canio the villain? Or is he a victim of Tonio’s Iago-like jealousy-baiting or Nedda’s possible affair?

“Canio is a very polarizing character,” Burton said. “My favorite thing about performing this opera is getting to see how many different interpretations or receptions it gets. To some people, he’s sympathetic. To others, they see him as the absolute villain of the show.

“I never know which ‘Pagliacci’ I’m walking into when I take the job. It has evolved in that I’ve done him so many different ways that at this point I’m just sort of fluid and give whatever the individual production calls for.”

“Pagliacci” 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.

Butler said performing verismo characters allows performers more room for artistic interpretation. “They’re not necessarily good or bad,” he said. “We’re just catching them at a bad moment.”

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.

A life in song

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  friendship grew into an in-depth operatic mentorship that led to Burton joining a local Gilbert & Sullivan company. By age 20, he’d already played seven different roles.

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.

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’s work has been in the United States, which allows him to spend more time with his family (he’s father to four children, ages 13 to 24).

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’s “The Girl of the Golden West” and he’s thrilled to have made role debuts as Gherman in Tchaikovsky’s “Queen of Spades” in 2021 and Paul in Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt (The Dead City)” in 2023.

Next on his bucket list? The operatic canon of Richard Wagner. “Wagnerian roles are the unmounted plateau on the horizon that I think about a lot,” he said.

Joining Burton in San Diego Opera’s “Pagliacci” are Hailey Clark as Nedda, Kidon Choi as Tonio and Timothy Murray as Silvio. General Director Bennett praised Clark for her “sizeable voice with incredible beauty and legato,” Murray’s “beautiful lyric baritone voice” and Choi’s “warm, round baritone voice.” The same cast, led by Burton, will perform at all three performance next weekend.

San Diego Opera’s 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. “Pagliacci” 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.

Burton said this will be the first time he’s sung Canio three days in a row, but he’s not concerned about vocal fatigue. And he doesn’t mind that these days opera companies are condensing both their rehearsal and performance schedules to reduce expenses.

“I think overhearsing is a big danger,” he said. “The fresher and more immediate and palpable you can keep this show for the audience, the more of a powder keg it will be.”

Season preview

“Pagliacci” is the first of five shows that will make up San Diego Opera’s 2025-26 season.

Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” plays Feb. 13-15, 2026, at the Civic Theatre followed by  Bizet’s “Carmen” March 27-29 at the Civic. San Diego Opera and La Jolla Music Society are co-producing  a one-night-only performance of Damien Geter’s newly commissioned  multimedia song cycle “Cotton” on Jan. 16 at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center in La Jolla.

The season concludes with the Gregory Spears-Greg Pierce opera “Fellow Travelers.” It’s based on the novel by Thomas Mallon and Showtime miniseries about the 1953 “lavender scare,” when Sen. Joseph McCarthy led an effort to root out LGBTQ employees in the federal government. Up Until Now Collective is producing a 10th anniversary, 10-city tour of “Fellow Travelers” that will stop July 10-12 at the Balboa Theatre.

San Diego Opera’s Bennett praised “Fellow Travelers” for having a “remarkably beautiful score, very moving, with unique and immediately accessible vocal writing. It’s also a timely love story, tailor- made for the opera.”

San Diego Opera presents ‘Pagliacci’

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday. 2 p.m. next Sunday

Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., downtown

Tickets: $53-$265

Online: sdopera.org