The album's front cover (painted by Nicholas Volpe) features Sinatra as a sullen, Pagliacci-like clown.
The opening lyric and melody of "It's a Hard Life" is based on the line "Ridi, Pagliaccio, sul tuo amore infranto!" (Laugh, clown, at your broken love!) from "Vesti la giubba", an aria from Ruggiero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci.
The melody was adapted from the music of Leoncavallo's opera, "I Pagliacci".
In 1946 and 1947, Mascherini appeared at the New York City Opera, in La bohème (as Marcello), La traviata (with Dorothy Kirsten), Pagliacci (as Silvio, later as Tonio), Rigoletto, Andrea Chénier (opposite Vivian della Chiesa), and Il barbiere di Siviglia (with Luigi Infantino and Virginia MacWatters).
Tucci made only two commercial recordings, Pagliacci in 1959, opposite Mario del Monaco, and Il trovatore in 1964, opposite Franco Corelli, but can be heard in a number of "live" performances, including Cherubini's Medea and Donizetti's Il Furioso al Isola di Santo Domingo.
In the summer of 1998 he sang in a production of Pagliacci staged by Liliana Cavani and conducted by Riccardo Muti alongside Plácido Domingo at the Ravenna Festival, to which he later returned in 2001 as Falstaff, once again under the baton of Muti.
She also sang there in Mefistofele (directed by Tito Capobianco), Madama Butterfly (opposite José Carreras), Pagliacci, Susannah, and Die tote Stadt (in Frank Corsaro's production).
One last effort to revive the company was made the following Fall when the company gave its last performance, Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, on October 30, 1930 with Aroldo Lindi as Canio, Helen Jepson as Nedda, and John Charles Thomas as Tonio.
As Claudio in Montero's Virginia, and roles in L'amico Fritz, Carmen, Aida, Pagliacci, Madame Butterfly, and Bastien und Bastienne had become part of Iriarte’s wide music repertoire full of success.
In 1936, she played the part of Nedda in the British film version of 'Pagliacci', starring Richard Tauber.
Her roles at the Met included Juliette, Marguerite, Marguerite de Valois from Les Huguenots, Micaela from Carmen, Cherubino from Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Elvira from Don Giovanni, Philine from Mignon, Berthe from Le prophète, the Forest Bird from Siegfried, Nedda from Pagliacci, Gilda from Rigoletto, Infanta from Le Cid, Inès from L'Africaine, and Mimì from La bohème among others.
He appeared with that company through 1938, in Aïda (with Elisabeth Rethberg), Cavalleria rusticana (with Rosa Ponselle), Carmen again (opposite Ponselle), Les contes d'Hoffmann (conducted by Maurice Abravanel and directed by Herbert Graf), Manon (with Bidu Sayão in her Met debut, later with Grace Moore), Faust, and Pagliacci (opposite Robert Weede in his Met debut).
He was also admired in a number of Italian operatic works, including Il trovatore, Aida, Cavalleria rusticana and Pagliacci.
Apart from the "Christmas in Vienna" concerts, he also recorded the Love Songs CD with José Carreras, CD and DVD of Pagliacci with Roberto Alagna and Svetla Vassileva, CD with Ramón Vargas & friends.