Rigoletto

The handsome, young Duke of Mantua has a carefree attitude to life and love (or at any rate, lust), but his court is a place of excess and casual cruelty, abetted by the Duke’s disfigured jester, Rigoletto. No one at court knows that Rigoletto leads a double life as the doting father of the young and innocent Gilda. But when Gilda unknowingly catches the Duke’s eye, Rigoletto’s smouldering resentment, a father’s curse and the courtiers’ malice all combine to fuel a revenge tragedy that spins terrifyingly out of control. Verdi’s Rigoletto was controversial in its day: The 1832 play by Victor Hugo upon which it was based had been banned in France, and Verdi’s librettist Piave relocated the drama to medieval Italy to avoid trouble with the censors. But the opera that was premiered, triumphantly, in Venice in March 1851 is a fierce and intensely human drama of paternal love, the sufferings of an outsider, and the corrupting effect of power. Verdi cuts straight to the story’s emotional heart, whether the Duke’s careless charm (“La donna è mobile”, still one of Verdi’s most infectious melodies), Gilda’s pure and idealistic young love (“Caro nome”) or Rigoletto’s vengeful fury (“Cortigiani, vil razza dannata!”). The Act III quartet “Bella figlia dell’amore” builds the musical tension as the drama sweeps to a denouement that feels as inevitable as it is shocking.