Staff report

Tickets go on sale Friday for “Pagliacci,” which will be Opera Western Reserve’s fall production.

“Pagliacci” (The Clowns) is a verismo-style opera, featuring realistic characters thrust into everyday life crises. Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo wrote both the words and the music in 1892.

The story follows a raucous band of traveling clowns, jugglers and actors who arrive in a small Italian town to perform their boisterous comedy act. Tensions rise behind the scenes between the actor playing Pagliaccio and his young wife, whom he suspects is having an affair. As his personal conflict is mirrored in the drama they are portraying on stage, the boundaries between performance and reality begin to blur.

Consumed with jealousy, suspicion and rage, Pagliaccio is unable to separate his own life from the fictional play they are enacting. A real-life tragedy unfolds on stage while the audience of villagers mistake the emotionally charged drama as expert acting.

“Vesti la giubba” (Put on the Costume) is the most famous aria from the opera, and the first record to sell a million copies was Enrico Caruso’s 1902 rendition of the aria.

Opera Western Reserve is in its 22nd year of presenting fully staged, costumed productions with orchestra, chorus and professional singers in Youngstown.

“Pagliacci” will be staged at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 at Powers Auditorium, 260 W. Federal St., Youngstown. Tickets range from $37 to $87, including service fees, with $10 tickets available for students. Tickets go on sale 10 a.m. Friday at the DeYor Performing Arts Center box office, online at experienceyourarts.org and by calling 330-259-9651.

For more information, go to operawesternreserve.org.