Lovers of Italian tragic opera have a treat in store this weekend when Virginia Opera’s imaginative production of “Cavalleria Rusticana” and “I Pagliacci,” the double bill popularly dubbed “Cav/Pag,” arrives in Fairfax. Vocally lush and dramatically grisly, the one-act operas will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

British stage director Lorna Haywood transports the scene to a small Sicilian village during Mussolini’s reign to stress the importance of religious traditions and feast days to Italians even during perilous times.