VERDI : RIGOLETTO

Radio New Zealand Concert network
Sunday 12th of March 2017 at 6.04 -9.20 pm.
Sunday 10th of January 2016 at 6..03 - 9.20 pm
Sunday 5th of January 2014 at 6.03 - 9.20 pm
Sunday 1st of December 2013 at 3.03 - 5.30 pm
Sunday 17th of March 2013 at 3.03 - 6.20 pm
Sunday 25th of November 2012 at 3.03 - 5.15 pm
Sunday  6th of February 2011 at 3.04 pm 
Sunday 8th of March 2009 at 2 pm 
Sunday 14th of January 2007 at 3 pm

2017
VERDI: Rigoletto, an opera in three acts based on Victor Hugo's play, Le roi s'amuse; here set in a casino in Las Vegas again, but it should end beside a river.
Rigoletto...................... Zeljko Lucic (as usual)
Gilda............................ Olga Peretyatko
The Duke..................... Stephen Costello
The Count.................... Paul Corona
The Countess............... Clarissa Lyons
Borsa............................ Scott Scully
Monterone................... Nelson Martinez
Sparafucile................... Andrea Mastroni
Marulla......................... Jeff Mattsey
Giovanna..................... Maria Zifchak
Maddalena................... Oksana Volkova
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Pier Giorgio Morandi 2016
VERDI: Rigoletto, an opera in three acts
Rigoletto, the hunchbacked jester in a depraved court where the Duke roves from one woman to another, and eventually falls in love with Rigoletto's own daughter, Gilda. (Yes, but it set in Las Vegas, and the cast is entirely different from last year, notice.)
Rigoletto...................... Zeljko Lucic
Gilda............................ Nadine Sierra
Duke of Mantua.......... Piotr Beczala
Sparafucile................... Dimitry Ivashchenko
Maddalena................... Nancy Fabiola Herrera
Giovanna..................... MaryAnn McCormick
Count Ceprano............ Paul Corona
Countess Ceprano........ Katherine Whyte
Borsa............................ Scott Scully
Count Monterone........ Robert Pomakov
Marullo........................ Jeff Mattsey
Guard........................... Earle Patriarco
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Roberto Abbado (EBU)
2014
VERDI: Rigoletto, an opera in three acts
Las Vegas is the setting this time
Rigoletto........................... Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Gilda................................. Sonya Yoncheva
Duke of Mantua............... Matthew Polenzani
Sparafucile........................ Stefan Kocán
Maddalena........................ Oksana Volkova
Giovanna.......................... Maria Zifchak
Count Ceprano................. David Crawford
Countess Ceprano............ Wallis Giunta
Borsa................................ Alexander Lewis
Count Monterone............. Robert Pomakov
Marullo............................. Jeff Mattsey
Usher................................ Earle Patriarco
Page.................................. Catherine Choi
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Pablo Heras-Casado
2012
VERDI: Rigoletto, an opera in three acts
Rigoletto...................... Zeljko Lucic
Gilda............................ Diana Damrau
Duke of Mantua.......... Piotr Beczala
Sparafucile................... Stefan Kocán
Maddalena................... Oksana Volkova
Giovanna..................... Maria Zifchak
Count Ceprano............ David Crawford
Countess Ceprano........ Emalie Savoy
Borsa............................ Alexander Lewis
Count Monterone........ Robert Pomakov
Marullo........................ Jeff Mattsey
Usher........................... Earle Patriarco
Page............................. Catherine Choi
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Michele Mariotti

This version of the opera, set in Las Vegas in the 1960s, in a casino, is given a Rat-Pack (Sinatra-style) makeover, complete with a new, swinging-60s English translation of the libretto. At the end a body bag is to be thrown into a flowing river, so will it be desert gulch in this case?
REVIEW
REVIEW

INTRODUCTION
COMPOSER
LIBRETTO (Italian)
LIBRETTO (Italian + English)

 The libretto of Rigoletto is based on a play by Victor Hugo (of Les Misérables fame), entitled Le Roi s'amuse (literally The King amuses himself). The French King that the playwright had in mind was François I (16th century). The drama was banned after its first performance in 1832, but Verdi got wind of it, and being bowled over by the story he commissioned the poet Francesco Maria Piave to prepare an opera libretto, in 1850. But censorship (for political, religious, and moral reasons) was severe in those days, and it was not going to be an easy task to get approval for a tale of a randy rogue ruler who spilled his royal seed around among commoners and was the object of an assassination attempt. As happened later with A Masked Ball, in which the King of Sweden had to become a governor in Boston, the king would be downgraded to a duke, and the setting would not be Paris but Mantua. His tragic jester, the hunchback Tribolet, father of a lily-white daughter named Blanche ('White'), would become Rigoletto (based on French rigoler, 'have fun', and rigoleur, 'joker'), and the daughter's name would be Gilda (gilding the lily?).

Like Handel's Messiah, Verdi's masterpiece was miraculously composed in forty days (though Verdi was an atheist, and he had written a lot of it before he started). It had immediate success at its first performance in Venice in 1851, and then all over Italy, though in order to get it past local censors it had to be given a string of aliases, such as Viscardello, Lionello, Clara di Perth.

The curse of Monterone

It is important to note that Verdi's original title for Rigoletto was La Maledizione ('The Malediction / The Curse'). In all four acts of the opera (though the first two scenes are usually combined as Act 1) the curse theme hangs heavily over the characters and in the music. It is the first motif we hear in the prelude (thirty-five bars only, so we never hear it played on the radio as a separate overture).

At the end of the first part, in the ducal palace, an aggrieved father named Count Monterone curses the Duke for seducing his daughter, and then, as he is being led away by two guards, he adds a malediction for the buffoon, who had been mocking him. The Duke is unperturbed, but Rigoletto is horrified, because he too has a daughter he wants to protect from seducers.

As the second part closes, when Rigoletto realizes that his daughter Gilda has been abducted from his home under his very nose (his eyes were under a blindfold at the time) the last thing we hear is 'Ah! la maledizione' (Ah! the curse).

In the final moments of the third part, back in the palace, Monterone happens to be passing by with his two guards, on his way to prison (or execution, in the worst-case scenario; he is said to be an old man and thus a slow mover, and perhaps they went to the toilet, while the Duke and all the courtiers were down at Rigoletto's house, or maybe he had received a summary trial, or they had got lost in the maze of corridors; anyway, he is now preceded by a valletto, a valet or footman). Monterone pauses at the full-length portrait of the Duke (there is one of the Duchess, too, but she never appears; she is probably locked up in her room so she can not interfere in the Duke's adventures). Monterone says to the picture that the curse does not seem to be working, since no thunderbolt or weapon has struck the libertine down, and he may possibly live happily ever after. Rigoletto quickly intervenes with a promise to be Monterone's avenger, and his own daughter's at the same time; but Gilda desires forgiveness for her beloved, not revenge.

After the tempestuous scenes and the howling storm in the last act (4, or 3 if you prefer), Rigoletto finds that all the money he has spent on hiring a killer has left him only with a dead daughter, while his intended victim, the aristocratic blackguard, goes off singing his theme-song, 'Woman is fickle'. Once again the loving father exclaims, Ah! the curse!

In my experience this 'malediction' attached to this opera can be pretty powerful. There was an occasion when I was making a video recording of it from television, when an electrical storm burst onto our town and the power was cut, leaving me bereft of the storm episode. This was the English National Opera version, in which all the courtiers are American gangsters in suits and sunglasses; this style was copied in the Sydney Opera House, too.

Outline of the opera

The prelude is sombre and menacing. Everything they say about merry clowns and jolly jesters is true: there is a dark side. And this buffoon is a hunchback, which does not improve his social standing or enhance his social graces.

First Scene
We are at a ball in the palace of the Duke of Mantua in the 16th century. The Duke (what is his name, by the way?) is strolling about among his guests and telling Borsa, one of his courtiers, about a beautiful girl he has had his eye on for three months; he first saw her at church, and she lives down a dark lane. His attention is diverted by Count Ceprano's lovely wife. (Let it be revealed now that she lives in a mansion in the vicinity of that mysterious girl, a commoner, who is Rigoletto's daughter Gilda, and nobody at court knows that secret.)

The Duke sings his ode to inconstancy: Questa o quella, This one or that one, they are all the same to him; he detests tyrannic constancy; he ignores the husband's jealous anger.

So saying, he begins to flirt with Countess Ceprano. Rigoletto taunts the count. And then come the significant words from Borsa and the courtiers: Il Duca ... si diverte ('The Duke diverts himself', equivalent to Victor Hugo's original title, Le Roi s'amuse).

Rigoletto agrees with them, that the Duke really enjoys his escapades: gambling, drinking, dancing, fighting, partying, and his siege of the countess is succeeding.

Here begins a périgourdine, a French country-dance, a kind of farandole with changing of hands.

Marullo gathers the courtiers for a piece of surprising gossip: Rigoletto has a mistress! (They are making a terrible mistake; it is actually his daughter.)

Rigoletto cheekily advises the Duke to get Ceprano out of the way by imprisonment, exile, or execution; the count overhears this and looks for revenge. The courtiers know how to achieve this, and will do it for Ceprano that very night. (They will carry off Rigoletto's 'girl', we will learn later.)

The Duke and Rigoletto lead the company in a chorus of festivity, rudely interrupted by Count Monterone, who delivers his curse on the Duke for ruining his daughter's life. If he is executed, his ghost will haunt the Duke, holding its severed head in its hand, and calling down divine vengeance on him. He also curses Rigoletto for adding to his misery. The Duke (for once in his life) is not amused. All except Rigoletto accuse Monterone of disturbing the peace (and being a death's head at a feast!) as he is arrested and led away by two guards. Rigoletto has the jitters, because he is now maledetto ('maledicted, accursed') by the maledizione ('the malediction, curse') of Monterone.

Second Scene
Rigoletto is going down his street to see his daughter, and he is accosted by Sparafucile, a hitman, offering his services, just like that [this is unbelievable, but he would be sure the gobbo (hunchback) was not a cop]: he can kill them in the street, or let his sister (Maddalena) entice them into their house of ill fame and dispatch them there. Rigoletto will keep it in mind. He enters into a soliloquy about the old man's curse, his own physical deformity, his painful job as a buffoon, the demands made on him by his young master, his hatred of the courtiers, and once again the thought of the curse hanging over him.

He enters his home and is welcomed by Gilda. She soon starts asking about her family, particularly her mother, and she would like to know his name (!). This drives him into self-pity; she is all he has in the world.

Rigoletto calls Giovanna, the girl's minder, and asks her to take good care of his pure flower. A lovely duet ensues between Gilda and her father.

The Duke, disguised as a student, comes out from his hiding-place behind a bush, dismisses Giovanna, and passionately declares his love to Gilda, and she keeps telling him to leave, but hoping he will stay, and finally drags a name out of him: Gualtier (Walter) Maldè, an impoverished student. And with a mutual promise of 'yours alone', they part.

Now the aria we have been waiting for: Caro nome, 'Dear name'. She begins by savouring the (counterfeit) name she has just heard, and vows that it will ever remain in her heart. Sigh!

Meanwhile, the courtiers, all wearing masks, have met Rigoletto in the street. They tell him they are abducting Ceprano's wife (though he is actually with them) to take her to the Duke. Rigoletto thinks this is a fine jape, and they blindfold him. They sing: Zitti, zitti, moviamo a vendetta, 'Hush, hush, we are getting revenge'. He holds the ladder while they invade his home and seize his daughter. Left alone, he realizes he has been duped, and feels the curse is working. He faints.

Third Scene
At home the Duke is shaken: Ella mi fu rapita! ('She was raped from me', in the original sense of 'abduct', as in 'the rape of the Sabine women'; rape in the modern legal sense comes later in the act, possibly). He knows she was kidnapped, because he went back and found the place deserted. He is uncharacteristically distraught; he blurts out that this was the first time he knew true love, with this cara fanciulla amata, 'dear beloved girl'.

The courtiers come in to report their success. They have bungled it, but the Duke is pleased; he understands that it is Gilda; he rushes off to console her and tell her he loves her. (He may have got too carried away; when she finally emerges later she feels very ashamed, hence the hint of 'rape').

Rigoletto appears, feigning calmness, singing La,la,la,la. He is searching for any signs of Gilda, and notices a handkerchief, while chatting with the boys about the night's adventure, and being told the Duke is asleep. A page announces that the Duchess wishes to speak with her spouse. The message for her is that he is hunting (which is usually true).

Rigoletto now senses that Gilda is with the Duke, and demands access to his daughter, yes his daughter, he wants her, they must give her back. They now comprehend the situation, but they bar his way. Cortigiani, vil razza dannata, 'Courtiers vile damned race'. He makes threats and tries to force his way through them; then he falls weeping to the floor and pleads with them.

Gilda comes out and tells her father about the shame she is feeling. Rigoletto orders the courtiers to leave, so that she can pour her heart out to him in private. She confesses to him about her secret meeting with the poor student, and a duet develops.

Monterone makes his appearance and remarks on the apparent lack of progress in the working of the curse, as noted earlier; and Rigoletto vows to be the avenger of them both, while Gilda counsels forgiveness.

Fourth Scene
The stage shows the exterior and interior of Sparafucile's dilapidated inn of dubious reputation. It has all been arranged, and Rigoletto is showing Gilda what a scoundrel the Duke is. She observes him disguised as a cavalry-officer, singing La donna è mobile qual piuma al vento,'Woman is fickle like a feather in the wind'. A woman changes her tune and her mind, constantly deceiving men with her pretty wiles; and yet a man can only know complete happiness in her embrace, he admits.

The professional murderer comes out to give the Duke and his sister some space. Rigoletto says he will tell him later whether the Duke will live or die, and Sparafucile strolls down to the river.

The Duke tells Maddalena (who is playing hard to get) that she is the only one for him, and he wants to marry her. Gilda regularly interjects with expressions of dismay and disgust. And then the magic moment arrives, as the tenor makes his big move: Bella figlia dell'amore, schiavo son de' vezzi tuoi; 'Lovely daughter of love, I am a slave to your charms', please come and give me some relief. The contralto sings 'Get out of here, that's what you say to all the girls'. The soprano soars above them in grief: 'Yes, those are the words he spoke to me, too; this will break my heart'. And the baritone has made up his mind: 'That's it; he's dead meat'. In all four cases read: or words to that effect.

Yes, this is the celebrated quartetto from Rigoletto. When I was in secondary school a group of lads entertained the assembly by miming to the recording with Enrico Caruso and Amelita Galli-Curci (ensuring her sweet voice was heard, by singing sharp). What puzzles me now is that one of the characters was making threatening gestures with a knife; but the assassin is not on the stage at that moment; and I now know there should be a partition in the middle of the quartet of singers. I suppose I thought it was funny then, but now I am not amused. Such crass ignorance!

No more arias, but a lot of intrigue in recitative, and a raging storm in the orchestra (and choir). Gilda is told to go home and put on male clothing in preparation for a flight to Verona on horseback. Rigoletto settles on the price with Sparafucile, who does not know it is the Duke of Mantua he will be assassinating. Rigoletto will return at midnight to collect the body-bag. The Duke suddenly feels like a lie-down, and goes to sleep. He is such a lovely boy, and Maddalena likes him, so she suggests they kill the hunchback instead, and take his money. No, you don't kill your clients; but anyone who comes through the door before midnight can be the substitute. Gilda has returned, and turns their duet into an impassioned trio; and when she hears this she presents herself, dressed as a man, begging. She is smothered and stabbed to death. 'God forgive them', she had said, and this should be her last word, but this is grand opera, and so she saves sufficient breath for a final duet with her father.

A clock strikes midnight. Rigoletto calls for the sack and struggles to drag it to the river for waste-disposal. He mutters in exultation all the way, but he is stopped in his tracks by the Duke singing in the streets, while the faint voice of Gilda emerges from the bag. He briefly hammers on the door (asking for his money back? No, it's not 'Oh my daughter, oh my ducats').
'Don't die, my treasure, my dove, please don't leave me.' ''Forgive me, forgive him. Bless your daughter, Father. I shall soon be in Heaven near my mother, and there I will pray for you.'

Screaming 'Ah, la maledizione', Rigoletto falls senseless over the body of his daughter.

SYNOPSIS 
REVIEW
REVIEW
REVIEW
This version of the opera, set in Las Vegas in the 1960s, in a casino, is given a Rat-Pack (Sinatra-style) makeover, complete with a new, swinging-60s English translation of the libretto. At the end a body bag is to be thrown into a flowing river, so will it be desert gulch in this case?
New York Metropolitan Opera broadcasts 
Sunday  6th of February 2011 at 3.04 pm 
Sunday 8th of March 2009 at 2 pm 
Sunday 14th of January 2007 at 3 pm

Sunday 17th of March 2013 at 3.03 - 6.20 pm
Sunday 1st of December 2013 at 3.03 - 5.30 pm  
VERDI'S RIGOLETTO
 The NBR NZ Opera's 2012 production
Rigoletto...................... Warwick Fyfe
Gilda............................ Emma Pearson
Duke of Mantua.......... Rafael Rojas
Sparafucile................... Ashraf Sewailam
Maddalena................... Kristin Darragh
Monterone................... Rodney Macann
Marullo........................ Matthew Landreth
Borsa............................ Derek Hill
Ceprano....................... James Clayton
Countess Ceprano........ Emma Fraser
Giovanna..................... Wendy Doyle
Usher........................... Moses Mackay
Page............................. Morag McDowell
Chapman Tripp Opera Chorus,
Auckland Philharmonia/Wyn Davies
(recorded in the Aotea Centre, Auckland by RNZ)

2011
Rigoletto....................... Giovanni Meoni
Gilda............................. Nino Machaidze
Duke of Mantua............ Joseph Calleja
Sparafucile.................... Stefan Kocán
Maddalena.................... Kirstin Chávez
Giovanna....................... Kathryn Day
Count Ceprano............. David Crawford
Countess Ceprano......... Edyta Kulczak
Borsa............................ Eduardo Valdes
Count Monterone.......... Quinn Kelsey
Marullo......................... Malcolm MacKenzie
Usher............................ Joseph Pariso
Page............................. Patricia Steiner
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Paolo Arrivabeni

2009
Gilda............................. Aleksandra Kurzak
Maddalena.................... Victoria Vizin
Duke............................. Giuseppe Filianoti
Rigoletto....................... George Gagnidze
Sparafucile.................... Mikhail Petrenko
Metropolitan Opera Chorus & Orch/Riccardo Frizza

The 2007 production had the dream-team of Anna Netrebko and Rolando Villazòn, and this time(2009) he will be the quizmaster in the second intermission.

CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
STORYLINE
BACKGROUND
UNDERGROUND
ANALYSIS