Leoncavallo, Ruggiero, lay ohn kah VAHL loh, rood JEH roh (1857-1919), was an Italian opera composer. He is best known for his two-act opera Pagliacci (1892). This opera is a violent tragedy about a group of traveling players. It is an example of a melodramatic form of realism called verismo. Leoncavallo wrote the words and the music, basing the story on a legal case handled by his father, a lawyer. Leoncavallo was inspired to write the opera by the success of Pietro Mascagni's one-act verismo opera, Cavalleria Rusticana (1890). The two works are usually performed together.