Giuseppe Verdi has entered the history of world music as one of the brightest classics, whose operas have been on the stages of leading theaters of all countries and continents for more than a century and a half. Their popularity is due to the deep folk music of this master of sound recording, its inseparable connection with national culture, artistic truth, humanistic orientation and extraordinary melodic richness.
Twenty-six operas were created by the artist during the 1930s and 1990s. These are "Nabucco" and "Hernani", "Macbeth" and "Troubadour", "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto", "Othello" and "Masquerade Ball" ... Although they belong to different periods of the composer's work and reflect different eras of history humanity, they are characterized by the author's desire to embody as deeply and truthfully as possible by musical means the individual characteristics and multifaceted characters of the heroes, regardless of the role they play in the plot of a work. Verdi's historical merit is that he created a national-Italian, realistic, psychologically true opera, linking it with the liberation movement of his people against foreign, including Austrian, domination. "Like any powerful talent," wrote O. Serov, "Verdi covers his nationality and his era. He is the voice of contemporary Italy, agitated by political storms. "
Perhaps the most vividly mentioned features of Verdi's creative worldview, in particular the coverage of ugly aspects of life, were reflected in the opera "Rigoletto", based on Hugo's drama "The King is Having Fun" (libretto by F. Piave) and first staged in 1851 in Venice at La Fenice . The work is an ingenious embodiment of the ideological essence of the drama of the great French writer.
F. Piave's libretto was written directly on the instructions of Verdi, the core of which followed from his artistic concept: the main thing in the opera - human characters, passions and feelings that can be revealed by musical means. By the way, thanks to such an artistic position, the composer brought Italian opera out of the crisis, which led to the cult of the beautiful voice of singers and ignoring the ideological content, drama, psychological saturation of images.
The composer himself drew a plan of the opera "Rigoletto", developed the main dramatic situations, the characters of the actors.
The social idea that attracted the composer in Hugo's drama was the opposition of a simple, unhappy man, the court jester Tribula, to the corrupt King Francis I. In Paris, Hugo's work was banned by censors, who saw it as a condemnation of royal power as such. Censorship also tried to interfere with Verdi's work on the opera. He was forced to make partial concessions, moving the action from Paris to the small Italian province of Mantua. The French king was replaced by the Duke of Mantua, instead of Tribule - Rigoletto, instead of Blanche (daughter of Tribule) - Gilda. However, the leading idea of the drama was preserved. In order to embody it as fully and multifacetedly as possible, Verdi strained the dramatic action to the utmost, giving it tragic pathos. The composer managed to achieve a deep emotionality of music based on folk intonations of Italian melodies. The musical canvas develops on the bright individual leitmotif characteristics of the main characters of the opera.
The unfolding of the action in the opera is based on contrasting comparisons. These are, for example, the leitmotif of the curse (leading in the opera), which phrases the introduction to "Rigoletto", and the dance festive scene of the ball in the palace of the Duke, which precedes the beginning of the first act; the mockery of the clown over the grief of the old Count Monterone, whose daughter was seduced by the duke, and his suffering for the daughter abducted by the duke's courtiers; ominous circumstances of Gilda's murder and against the same tragic background - the frivolous song of the Duke "Heart of Beauty".
Among the images of the opera clown Rigoletto is the most complex and multifaceted. He, entertaining the duke, mocks another's grief, causing boundless hatred for himself; he is also a gentle father who loves his only daughter infinitely; he is also an avenger who knows no pity for his enemies, fiercely angry at the people who trampled on his dignity. All these aspects of the image of the protagonist in the opera are inseparable integrity through music. They are overshadowed by the characteristics of other characters - the Count of Monterone, the Duke of Mantua, the daughter of Rigoletto Gilda, the assassin of the murderer Sparafuchile and more. In addition, different, and even polar in content and nature sound images of characters that form a common musical background, unfold polyphonically, ie in parallel in time and space. In this way, Verdi achieves a three-dimensional, multifaceted sound of the written text.
After the premiere of the Milan Opera in 1853, Verdi remarked: "I am satisfied with myself and I think I will not write anything better." Perhaps this is to some extent in line with his biography: none of the composer's subsequent works surpassed Rigoletto in the depth of musical characteristics and tragic pathos.
Since the first premiere of the opera, it has become one of the most repertoire not only in Italy but also far beyond its borders.
For the first time in Kyiv, the opera "Rigoletto" was performed in 1863 during a tour of the Italian troupe under the direction of Ferdinand Berger.
"Rigoletto" was also among the works represented in Kyiv by the Kharkiv troupe of A. Tsereteli (1900).
The most notable event of the Kyiv opera season of 1910 was the arrival in Kyiv of Antonina Nezhdanova and her performance of Gilda's part.
In the 1934 season, Ivan Kozlovsky performed in the part of the Duke of Mantua during the tour of the masters of the Bolshoi Theater in Kyiv. In the 1948-49 season, after graduating from the Odessa Conservatory, Elizabeth Chavdar (Gilda) made her debut. This opera was also performed during the tour of the Kyiv Opera and Ballet Theater in Sochi (1949).
The next premiere of "Rigoletto" on the Kyiv stage (with the participation of Yevhenia Miroshnychenko, Dmytro Hnatiuk, etc.) took place in 1975.
