After a lauded premiere on New Year’s Eve 2021, Bartlett Sher’s Art Deco–inspired production of Verdi’s ever-popular masterpiece returns for its first revival. Baritone Quinn Kelsey and soprano Rosa Feola reprise rapturously acclaimed turns as the tragic jester Rigoletto and his headstrong daughter, Gilda, and two artists make noteworthy Met debuts: tenor Benjamin Bernheim as the promiscuous Duke of Mantua, and Maestro Speranza Scappucci on the podium. Bass Andrea Mastroni is Sparafucile, and mezzo- soprano Aigul Akhmetshina also debuts as Maddalena. Later performances feature four additional stars, with baritones Luca Salsi and Michael Chioldi, soprano Lisette Oropesa, and tenor Stephen Costello taking over as Rigoletto, Gilda, and the Duke.
World premiere: Teatro La Fenice, Venice, 1851
A dramatic journey of undeniable force, Rigoletto was immensely popular from its premiere and remains fresh and powerful to this day. The story, based on a controversial play by Victor Hugo, tells of an outsider—a hunchbacked jester—who struggles to balance the dueling elements of beauty and evil that exist in his life. Written during the most fertile period of Verdi’s artistic life, the opera resonates with a universality that is frequently called Shakespearean.
Creators
In a remarkable career spanning six decades in the theater, Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) composed 26 operas, at least half of which are at the core of today’s repertoire. His role in Italy’s cultural and political development has made him an icon in his native country. Francesco Maria Piave (1810–76), Verdi’s librettist for Rigoletto, collaborated with him on ten works, including Ernani, La Traviata, La Forza del Destino, and the original versions of Macbeth and Simon Boccanegra.
Setting
Victor Hugo’s 1832 play Le Roi s’Amuse, set at the court of King François I of France (circa 1520), is a blatant depiction of depraved authority. In adapting it, Verdi and Piave fought with the Italian censors and eventually settled on moving the story to the non-royal Renaissance court of Mantua, while holding firm on the core issues of the drama. In the Met’s production, the action unfolds in Weimar Germany in the 1920s, a time and place with surprising parallels to the decadent—and dangerous—world of the original setting.
Music
Rigoletto contains a wealth of melody, including one that is among the world’s most famous: “La donna è mobile.” All the opera’s solos are rich with character insight and dramatic development. The famous Act III quartet, “Bella figlia dell’amore,” is an ingenious musical analysis of the diverging reactions of the four principals in the same moment: The Duke’s music rises with urgency and impatience, Gilda’s droops with disappointment, Rigoletto’s remains measured and paternal, while the promiscuous Maddalena is literally all over the place. In the context of the opera, the merely lovely music becomes inspired drama.
