A true enthusiast of the theatre, Verdi was an authentic admirer of the French playwright Victor Hugo, a master in his ability to craft dramatic devices of perfection and skilfully blend the comic and tragic, the grotesque and the sublime. Of all of Hugo’s plays, the composer considered Le Roi s’amuse “the greatest play of modern times,” which was why he was so ardently keen to set the piece to music. That was what he accomplished in 1851 with Rigoletto, a powerful opera that tells the story of a hunchback jester, whose blind thirst for revenge leads him to lose his only true treasure, his beloved daughter Gilda.
The lead character’s great fury and pain cannot find full vent in music. For the Teatro Regio, the complex title role will be sung by George Petean, an acclaimed Verdian baritone both in Europe and the United States. Piero Pretti, highly applauded last season as Riccardo in Un Ballo in Maschera, returns to take up one of his most iconic roles, the Duke of Mantua, the dissolute aristocrat for whom Verdi wrote the irresistible arias, “Questa o Quella per Me Pari Sono” and “La Donna è Mobile.” Giuliana Gianfaldoni will be the voice and face of Gilda, a young woman moved by passion and generosity. The production will be directed by the award-winning Leo Muscato, who returns to the Teatro Regio with the same creative team that produced the highly successful Agnese by Paer, winner of the Abbiati Prize in 2019. On the podium, maestro Nicola Luisotti, an internationally-acclaimed expert in Italian repertoire.
