Two sordid little shockers open Arizona Opera’s season. Giacomo Puccini’s “Il Tabarro” (“The Cloak”) and Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci” (“Clowns”) share major plot elements: A rough husband turns murderous when he discovers his wife is having an affair with a singer in a different vocal range.

It’s gritty stuff, beautifully performed on opening night last weekend in Tucson. The production moves to Gammage Auditorium this weekend.

It’s refreshing to find the two works unchained from their usual stagemates. They’re a nicely matched set of melodramas in similar, but not identical, styles. Although “Il Tabarro” lacks any arias that work out of context (unusual for Puccini), our patience is rewarded in “Pagliacci,” which contains one of the most famous tenor arias of all time, “Vesti la giubba.”

“Il Tabarro” is set on a riverside dock in Paris. Barge owner Michele suspects that his young, languishing wife, Giorgetta, is having an affair. Indeed, she plans to run off with a workman named Luigi, and the two share a wonderful duet about finding a better life in Paris. Ultimately, Michele murders Luigi, wrapping the body in the cloak of the title, a garment that once warmed Michele, Giorgetta and their now-dead infant.

As Michele, baritone Kelly Anderson got off to a gruff start on opening night. By the time he had serious work to do, though, he came into his own with a voice of power despite the fact that it was centered in his head rather than in his chest.

Soprano Barbara Divis was a fine, flexible Giorgetta. As Luigi, tenor Jeffrey Springer certainly had great pipes and dramatic involvement, but he relied too heavily on the cheap tenor trick of putting a catch in his voice in almost every phrase.

“Pagliacci” features tenor Tonio di Paolo as Canio, the leader of a tattered troupe of entertainers in rural 19th-century Italy. His wife, Nedda (soprano Stella Zambalis), is carrying on with a villager named Silvio (baritone Corey McKern).

Fellow clown Tonio (baritone Jeffrey Kneebone), spurned when trying to seduce Nedda, tattles to Canio about Nedda’s infidelity. Crushed, Canio sings that the show must go on despite his breaking heart. But, during the ensuing commedia dell’arte performance, he ascertains the identity of Nedda’s lover, killing him and Nedda before the curtain falls.

Silvio isn’t much of a role, but each of the other characters has one great moment, and each of the Arizona Opera singers made the most of it. Di Paolo deployed a manly tenor voice, keeping the self-pity of “Vesti la giubba” from going over the top. Zambalis delivered a lovely performance of her cabaletta, the one light spot in the opera, and Kneebone was captivating — both comic and a little sinister — in his prologue.