Rigoletto (The Opera Journeys Mini Guide Series)

Rigoletto

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Rigoletto Italian opera in three acts Music by Giuseppe Verdi

Premiere at the Gran Teatro La Fenice, Venice, March 1851

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Victor Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse, (The King Has a Good Time)

Adapted from the Opera Journeys Lecture Series by Burton D. Fisher

Story Synopsis Principal Characters in the Opera Story Narrative with Music Highlights Verdi…..and Rigoletto

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Opera Journeys™ Mini Guide Series Published © Copywritten by Opera Journeys www.operajourneys.com

Rigoletto

Page 2 Story Synopsis

Rigoletto is a grim and brutal melodrama. Rigoletto, deformed and hunchbacked, is a jester in the 16th century Court of the Duke of Mantua. Rigoletto mocks and outrageously insults the husbands and fathers of his master’s amorous conquests, eventually provoking the noble Monterone, whose daughter had been raped by the Duke, to pronounce a father’s curse on him. Rigoletto himself has a young daughter, Gilda, whom he overprotects by secluding her from the outside world. Unknown to Rigoletto, Gilda falls in love with the Duke after she meets him when he is disguised as a poor student. The courtiers of the Mantuan court, seeking revenge against the despised court jester, believe Gilda to be Rigoletto’s mistress. They conspire to abduct her and deliver their prize to the libertine Duke. When Rigoletto finds Gilda in the Duke’s palace, he vows revenge and punishment against his master for the rape of his beloved daughter; he hires the professional assassin, Sparafucile, to murder the Duke. Sparafucile’s sister and accomplice, Maddalena, becomes infatuated with the Duke and persuades her brother to fulfill his murder contract by killing the next person who enters their inn. Instead of the Duke, Gilda sacrifices her life for her new-found love and becomes the victim of Sparafucile’s sword. In a tragic irony of failed revenge, the corpse delivered to Rigoletto is his own beloved daughter, Gilda.

Principal Characters in the Opera Rigoletto, a court jester Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter Duke of Mantua Giovanna, Gilda’s nurse Sparafucile, a hired assassin Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister Monterone, a nobleman

Baritone Soprano Tenor Soprano Bass Soprano Bass

Count Ceprano, Countess Ceprano, Borsa, Marullo, and courtiers Time and Place: 16th century, The city of Mantua, Italy

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Prelude: A short prelude, somber, ominous, and menacing, musically presages the forthcoming tragedy. In the very first scene, Rigoletto will have mocked the aged nobleman, Monterone, for damning the Duke as the rapist of his daughter. In return for his insolence, Monterone pronounces a father’s curse on Rigoletto, the fear of the curse echoing throughout the drama and haunting Rigoletto. The musical motive of the prelude underscores Rigoletto’s fear and horror when he recalls Monterone’s curse: Quel vecchio maledivami!, “That old man cursed me!”

ACT 1 - Scene 1: A Salon in the Ducal Palace An elegant assembly of courtiers, ladies, and pages, are gathered in a magnificent salon in the Duke’s palace. The festive air is accented by lighthearted, elegant dance music played by an off-stage band; the trivial gaiety is a profound contrast to the grotesque reality of the scene which is pervaded by banality, evil, and depravity. The ambience suggests a Roman orgy, or the circus-like decadence of a Felliniesque La dolce vita. Off-stage Dance Music:

The Duke of Mantua strolls through the crowd while in conversation with Borsa, one of his courtiers, enthusiastically telling him about a beautiful young girl he saw in church and has been pursuing incognito for the past three months. He relates how he followed her to her small home located in a narrow lane in a remote part of the city, but has been confused by the appearance of a mysterious man who visits her every evening. The Duke’s attention wanders to a group of women who cross before him. Among them is the Countess Ceprano, whom he immediately praises for her

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beauty, heedless to Borsa’s counsel that her husband, the Count Ceprano, should not overhear his amorous overtures. The Duke responds to Borsa’s caution by expounding his libertine, chauvinist philosophy about women: Questa o quella per me pari sono, “This woman or that woman? For me, they are all the same.” The Duke’s cynicism expresses the view that one pretty woman is the same as any other; today this one pleases him, tomorrow another. He speaks of fidelity as “a tyrant to shun like a bad disease,” scornfully affirming his freedom to love according to his whims, and flamboyantly ridiculing cuckolded and jealous husbands. Questa o quella per me pari sono

Indifferent to Count Ceprano’s rage, the Duke fervently continues his flirtations with the Countess, kissing her hand and telling her he is “drunk with love for her.” After the Duke wanders off with the Countess to an adjoining room, Rigoletto, the hunchbacked court jester, arrives and immediately taunts and provokes the furious Count Ceprano, adding fuel to his outrage by implying that the Duke is enjoying the willing favors of the Countess. After Rigoletto goes off to follow the Duke and the Countess Ceprano, to the merriment of the other courtiers, Marullo breaks the news that he has discovered that the ugly old jester has a mistress, a woman whom he visits every night. The courtiers react in disbelief, suggesting to Marullo that pandering by this sexually repulsive hunchback must surely be an hilarious joke. The Duke returns to the festivities and confides to Rigoletto that the Countess Ceprano would be a wonderful conquest, however, her husband is an impediment and he would like to get rid of him. The malevolent Rigoletto adds fuel to the fire and casually suggests prison, exile, or even execution for the Count, saying with nonchalance: “so what, what does it matter?” Ceprano overhears their nefarious conversation, fumes with revenge, and reacts violently, barely restraining himself from drawing his sword against Rigoletto. The Duke berates Rigoletto, suggesting that this time he has gone too far; nevertheless, the jester feels secure in his unlimited trust in the Duke’s protection. All the courtiers have at one time or another been victims of the malevolent derision of the contemptuous court jester.

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Rigoletto’s jibes at Ceprano have pushed the envelope, and this time, the courtiers readily agree with Ceprano that they will meet him later that evening to plot revenge on the hunchback. Their revenge on Rigoletto will be the ultimate irony to Rigoletto’s scorn: they will follow Rigoletto’s own suggestion to the Duke and will abduct his “mistress.” The stern voice of Count Monterone is heard outside, demanding to be admitted. Monterone confronts the Duke and denounces the profligate libertine for seducing his daughter. Rigoletto mocks and ridicules the old man, but Monterone continues his protest and declares that dead or alive, he will haunt the Duke for the rest of his days. The Duke’s response is to order that Monterone be arrested. The relentless Rigoletto continues to insult the outraged father, ultimately inflaming Monterone to curse the Duke, as well as to damn the court jester. Monterone, the austere voice of divine justice, curses the evil Rigoletto: “As for you, serpent, you can laugh at a father’s anguish; a father’s curse be on your head.” It is Monterone’s second curse, directed solely at Rigoletto, that makes the jester freeze with horror. The courtiers resume their festivities as Monterone is led off by guards. Rigoletto trembles with fright and terror, and recoils in fear; Monterone’s curse is firmly implanted in his soul.

Scene 2: A deserted and dark street Rigoletto, almost totally disguised and wrapped in a cloak, walks toward his home, paranoid in his fear of Monterone’s curse: Qual vecchio maladivami! “That old man cursed me!” He is followed by an ominous figure who introduces himself as Sparafucile, a professional assassin-for-hire. Sparafucile explains the terms of his profession with the self-conscious rectitude of an honest tradesman, offering Rigoletto his services at reasonable charges should he ever need to get rid of any rival for the young woman he keeps under lock and key. Sparafucile’s music:

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Sparafucile explains the details of his trade to Rigoletto; he and his sister, a gypsy temptress, lure their victims to their Inn and then dispose of them. Rigoletto indicates no present need for his services, dismisses him, but indeed makes a point of learning how he can be found in the future. Alone, Rigoletto is again haunted by returning thoughts of Monterone’s curse. He then reflects on his chance meeting with the assassin for hire, comparing himself as his equal: Pari siamo! Io la lingua, egli ha il pugnato…, “We are equals, I use the tongue, you use the dagger.” Both men indeed share evil: both men are paid to wound their victims with their lethal weapons; one with his tongue, the other with his sword. Pari siamo

In this soliloquy, Pari siamo…, Rigoletto curses fate and nature for bringing him into the world ugly and deformed. He further blames the hated courtiers as the cause of his own wickedness and evil. But again, Monterone’s curse returns to haunt his thoughts, his disturbed mood shaken off only when the echo of flute music returns his thoughts to his beloved daughter, Gilda. Gilda welcomes Rigoletto:

Rigoletto enters the courtyard of his house and Gilda rushes joyfully to embrace her father. Gilda senses her father’s sadness. Rigoletto is uneasy and agitated. Bordering on fear and panic, he immediately asks Gilda if she has been out of the house, fearing that she would fall victim to one of the courtiers or the evils of the city. Gilda tries to change the mood; she expresses her deep love for her father, and asks to know more about him and her family. Why does her father never tell her his name? She asks about her mother, and Rigoletto replies: “Do not speak of misery, of that terrible loss…”

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Rigoletto and Gilda: Deh non parlare al misero

Rigoletto passionately explains to Gilda that she is his only treasure left in this world, but suddenly, again preoccupied with fears, he turns to the nurse Giovanna and reminds her to carefully protect his beloved child; Gilda is to remain within the walls of their home and never to venture into the town except on that one day when the nurse is to accompany her to church. Ah veglia donna

Noises are heard from the street and Rigoletto rushes out to investigate. After he leaves, the Duke slips into the courtyard, sees Giovanna, and throws her a purse to buy her silence. The Duke remains hidden as Rigoletto returns. Unable to allay his fears and suspicions, Rigoletto questions Gilda if anyone had ever followed her from church. Gilda responds negatively, assuring her father that he need not fear for her safety; her mother - an angel in heaven - is always protecting her. Rigoletto bids a touching farewell to Gilda, his parting words mia figlia, “my daughter,” are overheard by the hiding Duke, and provides him with a surprising revelation. After Rigoletto departs, Gilda confesses to Giovanna her remorse at not having confided to her father that she has frequently been followed from church by a handsome young man. As she reveals her love for this mysterious suitor - t’amo, “I love you” - the Duke steps out from hiding, embraces Gilda, and then explodes into a declaration of his love for her. È il sol dell’anima

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Gilda tries feebly to resist the Duke’s ardor but surrenders; both join in an ecstatic love duet. In response to Gilda’s curiosity, the Duke tells her that his name is Gualtier Maldé, a poor and struggling student. The voices of Borsa and Ceprano – preparing the courtier’s intrigue to abduct Rigoletto’s mistress - cause Giovanna to warn the lovers. Gilda is also fearful that her father may be returning and insists that her newfound lover depart. Gilda and Gualtier Maldé – the Duke – sing a passionate farewell. Duke and Gilda: Addio, addio, speranza ed anima.

Alone, Gilda sighs joyfully about the poor student she has fallen in love with, Gualtier Maldé: Caro nome, “Dearest name, the first to quicken my heart.” Caro nome

Meanwhile, the courtiers – disguised and masked - have assembled in the dark night. They notice Gilda from hiding, and comment on the beauty of “Rigoletto’s mistress.” Rigoletto unexpectedly returns, runs into the courtiers, and they calm his fears and suspicions by telling him that their mission is to abduct Ceprano’s wife for the Duke. Rigoletto delights perversely at the intrigue, points them to Ceprano’s house, and offers them his help. The courtiers insist that Rigoletto must also wear a disguising mask. Thoroughly confused and blinded by the mask, Rigoletto unwittingly holds a ladder for the courtiers against what he believes to be the wall of Ceprano’s house, but in reality, he is holding the ladder against his own house. The abductors enter Rigoletto’s house and seize, gag, and carry away Gilda. A moment later, Gilda’s cries for help are heard, followed by shouts of “victory” from the escaping courtiers. But Rigoletto, his ears covered by the mask, hears nothing. Now thoroughly

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confused and bewildered, he tears off the mask and discovers that he is in his own courtyard. On the ground, he notices Gilda’s scarf, and then notices that the door of his house is wide open. Frantic with fear, he rushes into his house and finds that Gilda has disappeared. He comes out of the house dragging the terrified Giovanna, and staggers in shock on the disaster he has helped bring upon himself. In agony, he remembers Monterone’s curse and bursts out: Ah! La maledizione! “Ah, the curse!” And then, Rigoletto faints.

ACT II: A drawing room in the Duke’s Palace The Duke is agitated and distraught. He had returned to Rigoletto’s house; instead of finding Gilda, he found the house deserted. Certain that Gilda has been abducted, he is torn between rage that anyone should have dared to cross him, and pity for the girl whom he now claims has awakened for the first time, genuine feelings of affection. The Duke reveals a heretofore unrevealed sense of sincerity and compassion. Parmi veder le lagrime

Marullo, Ceprano, Borsa, and other courtiers enter the drawing room and gleefully – and heartlessly - narrate their adventures of the previous night, cynically describing Rigoletto’s unwitting collaboration as they abducted the girl they believed to be Rigoletto’s mistress. The Duke realizes that they are referring to none other than Gilda. He is further delighted when he learns that they have brought her to the palace. He dashes off to the conquest, intending to console his new love. The grief-stricken Rigoletto enters the salon, selfcontrolled and pretending nonchalance; his cynicism conceals his distress and anxiety. The courtiers greet him with ironical good humor, but in a pathetic spectacle, Rigoletto searches for clues as to the whereabouts of his daughter, even snatching up a handkerchief from the table in the hope that it may belong to Gilda. Certain that Gilda is with the Duke and in the palace, he tries to enter the Duke’s quarters, but the

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courtiers bar his way, telling him that the Duke is asleep and cannot be disturbed. A page enters to announce that the Duchess wishes to speak to her husband. The courtiers respond by pretending that the Duke has gone hunting, but Rigoletto pierces through the veil of their charade and intuitively senses the truth: he concludes that Gilda is definitely in the palace. Behind a laughing exterior, Rigoletto continues his search for Gilda. The courtiers mock him, telling him to look for his “mistress” somewhere else. In a fury, Rigoletto astonishes them and reveals the truth, crying out: Io vo’ mia figlia, “I want my daughter.” Alternating between threats and pleas - and even force - to enter the Duke’s quarters, in a state of fury and frustration, Rigoletto violently denounces the courtiers, simultaneously lashing out at their cruelty with pleas for mercy: Cortigiani vil razza,dannata “Courtiers, you cursed race.” Cortigiani vil razza, dannata

Suddenly, the freshly ravished Gilda rushes out from the Duke’s apartments and throws herself into her father’s arms. Rigoletto’s first reaction is one of relief: in his mind she is safe. Perhaps it was all a joke. Gilda sees her father for the first time in his jester’s costume, and each, in a blinding moment of revelation, realizes their shame. Gilda’s tears convince Rigoletto that the matter is more serious as she tells her father: “Let me blush before you alone.” Gilda admits her guilt and confesses everything to Rigoletto. She relates how a young student she had seen in church followed her to her home, and how she later fell in love with him. When she was abducted and brought to the palace, she was surprised to find that the young man was none other than the Duke of Mantua: Gilda had innocently fallen in love and abandoned herself to her new love consensually. Tutte le feste al tempio

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During this poignant and delicate moment, Rigoletto tenderly attempts to comfort his daughter, but he is confused, and even in denial. Monterone passes by under guard on his way to prison. He pauses and directs his chagrined anger before the Duke’s portrait: “Since I have cursed you in vain, and no thunderbolt or sword has struck you down, you live happily still, Duke.” As Monterone is led away, Rigoletto calls to him, telling him that he is mistaken: Rigoletto assures him that they will both be avenged. At this turning point of the drama, Rigoletto is now transformed into a man of savage fury. He swears a frightful vengeance on the Duke while Gilda tries in vain to beg forgiveness for the man she deeply loves. Duet: Si vendetta tremenda vendetta.

ACT III: Sparafucile’s Inn on the deserted banks of the Mincio River. Sparafucile sits inside the inn, polishing his belt. Outside, Rigoletto and Gilda watch through a small opening in the wall. Still full of romantic protestations, Gilda persists that she passionately loves the Duke, and truly believes he will return her love. But Rigoletto believes he can cure her affectation for this licentious libertine by bringing her to Sparafucile’s Inn; he well knows that what she will witness inside will prove to her that her lover is worthless and capricious. The Duke, disguised as a cavalier, is seen inside the Inn ordering wine and a room for the night. Gilda now hears her lover in his true character. The libertine Duke once again advances his cynical, chauvinist philosophy about the fickleness of woman: La donna è mobile, “Woman is fickle.” La donna é mobile

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Sparafucile’s sister, Maddalena, the gypsy enchantress, had lured the Duke to the inn and now joins him. Gilda and Rigoletto remain outside, watching the Duke flirt with Maddalena inside the tavern. The famous Act III Quartet begins with Bella figlia dell’amore, “Pretty daughter of love.” Each character’s individual passions stands out in high relief: outside the inn, Rigoletto seeks revenge while Gilda is forgiving; inside the inn, Maddalena half-heartedly repels the Duke’s advances as the Duke pulsates with amorous passion, prepared to offer her anything, even marriage, to succeed in his amorous conquest. Concealed in the darkness outside, Gilda witnesses the amorous interplay between the Duke and Maddalena, becoming heartbroken and grim as she witnesses how lightly they speak of love. Quartet: Bella figlia dell’amore

Rigoletto persuades the disillusioned and heartbroken Gilda to return home, dress in male attire, and set out for Verona where he will meet her the next day. After she leaves, Rigoletto summons Sparafucile and hands over half the assassin’s fee for the murder of the Duke, promising to pay the remainder when the body is delivered to him in a sack at midnight. Sparafucile offers to throw the body in the river himself, but Rigoletto, wanting personal satisfaction, insists that he will personally return at midnight for the body. Sparafucile casually asks Rigoletto the victim’s name, and Rigoletto antagonistically replies: Voui saper anche il mio? Egli è Delitto, Punizion son io, “Do you want to know my name as well? He is crime, and mine is punishment.” Meanwhile, inside the inn, the flirtations between Maddalena and the Duke grow more intimate. A storm has gathered outside, which forces the Duke to stay the night at the inn. Gilda has returned and overhears Maddalena announce to Sparafucile that she has been seduced by the Duke’s charms and has fallen in love with him. Maddalena attempts to dissuade her brother from murdering her new-found love; nevertheless, Sparafucile fails to understand his sister ’s sudden

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sentiment when the real stake is their fee of twenty crowns. Maddalena suggests to her brother that he kill the hunchback instead of the man she now endearingly refers to as her “Apollo.” Citing his honor, Sparafucile refuses to betray his employer; one does not betray and murder his own client. Sparafucile offers his sister a compromise: if another stranger should chance to call at the Inn before midnight, the hour of Rigoletto’s return, he will be the murder victim. In either case, Rigoletto will still have a corpse for his money. If no one appears, Maddalena’s new love must die. Gilda has overheard Maddalena and Sparafucile argue as to which of the two shall die: Gilda’s lover, or their client, her father Rigoletto. Gilda fears for her lover’s life, ultimately resolving to sacrifice her own life for the Duke. Lightning and thunder crack as the storm increases with sudden and overwhelming fury. Gilda summons up her courage, knocks on the door, and calls out: “Have pity on a beggar who wants shelter for the night.” She then enters the inn and runs into Sparafucile’s sword. In the darkness, Gilda’s last pathetic words are heard, “God forgive them.” After a violent orchestral outburst, all is silent. As midnight strikes, Rigoletto returns to the inn. Sparafucile meets him with the sack containing the dead victim, offers to throw the sack in the river, but Rigoletto claims his privilege and satisfaction, wanting to savor the triumph of his vengeance. The gloating Rigoletto drags the sack toward the river. In his moment of victory, he proclaims: Ora mi guarda o mondo! Quest’è un buffone, ed un potente è questo! Ei sta sotto i miei piedi! È desso! Oh gioia! “World look at me now! Here is a buffoon, and a powerful buffoon! And standing under my foot, it is him! Oh joy!” Rigoletto trembles when he hears in the distance the Duke’s voice singing La donna é mobile. In disbelief, he cries out that it must be a dream or an illusion. If not, who is in the sack? It is pitch dark with occasional lightning providing the only visibility. He tears the sack open, and a sudden flash of lightning reveals Gilda’s face. He cannot believe his senses, but the faint voice from the sack reveals the truth: it is indeed his beloved Gilda.

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Gilda is dying from her wounds, but with her last breath, she begs her father’s forgiveness, at the same time, defending her actions by explaining how much she loved the Duke. V’ho ingannato

In a touching farewell, Lassu in ciel, “Up there in Heaven,” Gilda tells her father how much she truly loves him, assures him that she will be united with her mother in Heaven, where they will both pray for him. Lassu in ciel

Rigoletto cries out, “She is dead.” His screams reveal the utter futility of this tragic moment of fury and frustration, his explanation for the collapse of his world uttered in his last words: Ah! La maledizione, “Ah, the curse.” Monterone’s curse has been fulfilled as disaster overcomes the jester, defeated by his own evil.

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Verdi………………..……….......................…and Rigoletto

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y the year 1851, the year of Rigoletto’s premiere, the 38 year-old Giuseppe Verdi was acknowledged as the most popular opera composer in the world. He had established himself as the legitimate heir to the great Italian opera traditions that had been preserved during the first half of the 19th century by his immediate bel canto predecessors: Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Viewing the opera landscape at mid-century, Donizetti had died in 1848, Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète had premiered in 1849, and Wagner’s Lohengrin had premiered in 1850. Verdi composed 15 operas during his first creative period - between the years 1840 and 1851. His first two operas, Oberto (1839), and the comedy Un Giorno di Regno (1840), were received with indifference. His third opera, Nabucco (1842), was a triumph that overnight transformed Verdi into an opera icon. He followed with I Lombardi (1843); Ernani (1844); I Due Foscari (1844); Giovanna d’Arco (1845); Alzira (1845); Attila (1846); Macbeth (1847); I Masnadieri (1847); Il Corsaro (1848); La Battaglia di Legnano (1849); Luisa Miller (1849) and Stiffelio (1850). Eventually, Verdi would write a total of 28 operas during his illustrious career, dying in 1901 at the age of 78. The underlying theme that was the foundation of Verdi’s early operas concerned his patriotic mission for the liberation of his beloved Italy, at that time, suffering under the oppressive rule of both France and Austria. Verdi, with his operatic pen, sounded the alarm for Italy’s freedom. Each of those early opera stories was disguised with allegory, metaphor, and irony, all advocating individual liberty, freedom, and independence: the suffering and struggling heroes and heroines in his early operas were his beloved Italian compatriots. For example, in Giovanna d’Arco (Joan of Arc), the French patriot Joan confronts the oppressive English and is eventually martyred; the heroine’s plight became synonymous with Italy’s struggle with its own foreign oppression. In Nabucco, the suffering Hebrews enslaved by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were allegorically, the Italian people themselves, similarly in bondage by foreign oppressors. Verdi’s Italian audience easily read the underlying message he had subtly injected between the lines of his text and music. At Nabucco’s premiere, at the end of the Hebrew slave chorus, Va Pensiero, the audience actually stopped the performance with inspired nationalistic shouts of Viva Italia. The Va pensiero chorus became the unofficial Italian “National Anthem,” the musical symbol of Italy’s

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patriotic aspirations. Even the name V E R D I had a dual meaning: homage to the great maestro in the form of Viva Verdi, and also as an acronym for Italian unification; V E R D I stood for Vittorio Emanuelo Re D’ Italia, a dream for the return of King Victor Emmanuel.

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s the 1850s unfolded, Verdi’s genius had arrived at a turning point in terms of his artistic evolution and maturity. He felt that his patriotic mission for Italian independence was soon to be realized, sensing the fulfillment of Italian liberation and unification in the forthcoming Risorgimento, the historic revolutionary event that established the Italian nation as we know it today. Satisfied that he had achieved his patriotic objectives, Verdi decided to abandon the heroic pathos and nationalistic themes of his early operas. He now was seeking more profound operatic subjects: subjects that would be bold to the extreme; subjects with greater dramatic and psychological depth; subjects that accented spiritual values, intimate humanity and tender emotions. From this point forward, he would be ceaseless in his goal to create an expressiveness and acute delineation of the human soul that had never before been realized on the opera stage. The year 1851 inaugurated Verdi’s “middle period,” the defining moment in his career, the moment when his operas would start to contain heretofore unknown dramatic qualities and intensities, an exceptional lyricism, and a profound characterization of humanity. Starting in this “middle period,” Verdi’s art flowered into a new maturity, resulting into some of the best loved operas of all time: Rigoletto (1851); Il trovatore (1853); La Traviata (1853); I Vespri Siciliani (1855); Simon Boccanegra (1857); Aroldo (1857); Un Ballo in Maschera (1859); La Forza del Destino (1862); Don Carlos (1867); Aïda (1871). In his final works, he succeeded in his advance toward a greater dramatic synthesis between text and music that would culminate in what some consider his greatest masterpieces: Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893).

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n 1851, Verdi was approached by the management of La Fenice in Venice to write an opera to celebrate the Carnival and Lent seasons. In seeking a story source for the opera, Verdi turned to the new romanticism of the French dramatist, Victor Hugo. Seven years earlier, in 1844, Verdi had a brilliant success with his operatic treatment of Hugo’s Hernani: Verdi’s Ernani.

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Victor Hugo’s play, Le Roi s’amuse, “The King has a good time,” premiered in 1832 and depicted the libertine escapades and adventures of François I of France (15151547), the drama featuring as its primary force, an ugly, disillusioned, hunchbacked court jester named Triboulet. Hugo had boldly announced that his plays would no longer parade one-dimensional protagonists who were either all-virtuous, or all-villainous. Hugo now created new types of characters who were complex and ambivalent: personalities whom he would label “grotesque creatures.” In his play Le Roi s’amuse, in particular, he created his quintessential “grotesque creature” in the ambivalent character of the jester Triboulet: a tragic man with two souls; a physically monstrous and morally evil, wicked personality, but a man who was simultaneously, a magnanimous, kind, gentle, and compassionate human being. Hugo’s Triboulet – Rigoletto in Verdi’s opera – was outwardly a physically ugly hunchback, ridiculous and deformed, as well as mean and sadistic. Yet inwardly, he was an intensely human creature, a man filled with passion and unbounded love which he showered on his beloved daughter. (The name Triboulet is descriptive: it is derived from the French verb tribouler, meaning to guffaw, to be noisy, hilarious, or boisterous.) Verdi had read Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse, but certainly had never seen the play on stage. Hugo’s play survived only the one night of its premiere in 1832; its next performance did not occur until 50 years later in 1882. Censors decided to ban the play from the French, German, and Italian stages, compounding their criticism by finding its content overly abundant in its immorality and its repulsiveness. But Verdi was now in his crusade to seek more intense operatic subjects, and recognized in Hugo’s story those sublime operatic possibilities that would stir moral passions. He sensed that the character Triboulet was a creation worthy of Shakespeare: a character who took human nature to its limits, and through whom, new levels of consciousness would come into being. Verdi wrote to his favorite librettist of the time, Francesco Maria Piave, his librettist for his earlier operas Ernani and Macbeth - and later La Forza del Destino: “I have in mind another subject, which, if the police (censors) would allow it, is one of the greatest creations of modern theatre. The story is great, immense, and includes a character who is one of the greatest creations that the theatres of all nations and all times will boast. The story is Le Roi s’amuse, and the character I mean is Triboulet.”

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There was intense hostility and animosity in the historical marriage of Hugo’s dramatic sources and Verdi’s musical treatment of them. Earlier, Hugo had vigorously denounced Verdi’s operatic adaptation of his play Hernani - and later his adaptation of Rigoletto – when they were staged in Paris, and did everything within his power to prevent public production of what he considered a literary mutilation of his works, even unsuccessfully initiating legal action in the Paris courts to prohibit their performances. Hugo was admittedly resentful – and even envious and jealous – of Verdi’s popularity, but his comments about the famous Quartet from Rigoletto’s final act represent his reluctant admission of Verdi’s operatic genius, as well as his tribute to the unique expressiveness of the operatic art-form. Hugo commented: “If I could only make four characters in my plays speak at the same time, and have the audience grasp the words and sentiments, I would obtain the very same effect.” Nevertheless, it was Giuseppe Verdi who would ultimately provide immortality for Hugo’s play, Le Roi s’amuse.

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urope’s mid-nineteenth century was a time of revolution and unrest. Napoleon’s defeat and the political alliances evolving from the Congress of Vienna (1813-1815), had given Europe’s ruling monarchies a renewed incentive to protect the status quo of their autocracies, all of which were being threatened by ethnic nationalism, the Enlightenment sense of individual liberty and freedom: new ideological forces evolving from the transformations caused by the Industrial Revolution. The ability of the continental powers to control artistic truth was directly proportional to the stability and continuity of their authority. Censorship – particularly the control of ideas expressed in the arts – became the vehicle to regulate and determine that nothing should be shown upon the stage that might in the least fan the flames of rebellion and discontent. Kings, ministers, and governments, all reflected an apparent paranoia, an irrational fear, and an almost pathological suspicion of ideas. It was through censorship that they exerted their power and determination to protect what they considered “universal truths”: conservatism would overpower progress. A perfect example of censorship in action occurred in France in the suppression of Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse. Despite the French Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of expression, the censors’ rationale for banning Hugo’s play was simply stated without recourse to argument: they considered the subject immoral, obscenely trivial, scandalous,

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and even a subversive threat to the status quo. Similarly, in Verdi’s Italy, ruled by both France and Austria, censors would reject and prevent the performance of works whose ideas they considered subversive, or a threat to the social and political fabric of their society. The Verdi/Piave adaptation of Hugo’s Le Roi s’amuse was initially titled La Maledizione, “The Curse.” In Verdi’s opera, Monterone’s curse is the engine that drives the drama. The working out of the curse is the core, essential dramatic force in which the entire plot devolves. In the opera story, the aged Monterone calls upon the divine cosmic powers of good to condemn the offensive Duke and the slanderous Rigoletto, demonizing them both, but particularly obsessing and overcoming the jester with fear and haunting him throughout the drama: the musical theme echoing throughout the opera - Quel vecchio maledivami, “That old man cursed me” - always playing in the same key and with the same instrumentation. In a similar vein, Alberich’s curse – the Renunciation of love - provides the dramatic thread for Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung. Verdi and his librettist Piave were both very much aware that their opera La Maledizione would provoke the Venetian censors – Venice was then under Austrian rule. Indeed, just three months before the scheduled premiere of La Maledizione, their battle began. The Austrian censors exploded, totally rejecting the work and forbidding its performance, and expressing their profound regret that Piave and Verdi did not choose a more worthy vehicle to display their talents, rather than the revolting immorality and obscene triviality contained in the text of La Maledizione. The censors considered the theme of the curse to be blasphemously offensive to prevailing religious proprieties. Verdi and Piave were far from naïve and their hope was to bring the Hugo story to the opera stage without severe mutilation or injury to its dramatic substance. Their first concession was to change the opera’s title: the opera title was changed to its title character, Rigoletto, an adaptation of the French word rigoler, to guffaw. But the real thrust of the censors’ main objection concerned itself with the opera’s obscene and despicable portrayal of the misdeeds and frailties of King François I. In the story, the King is represented as an unconscionable, debauched monarch. Royal profligacy in action could not be staged, nor a royal plan to abduct a courtier’s wife (Countess Ceprano), nor a royal keeping low company in a tavern and becoming entrapped by a lowly gypsy (Maddalena), and most of all, a King could not be manipulated by a crippled jester and eventually become his intended assassination victim.

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Verdi’s next concession was the substitution of the Duke of Mantua for King François I: In effect, the Duke bore the anonymity of any Mantovani, an insignificant ruler of a petty state rather than an historic King of France. But in addition, the censors were relentless and demanded that Rigoletto’s daughter, Gilda, should be substituted with his sister; that the sleaziness of Sparafucile’s Inn in the final scene should be altered to eliminate its “aura” of a house of prostitution; and finally, that they eliminate the repulsiveness of “packing” Gilda – or his sister - in a sack in the opera’s final moment. In a stroke of operatic Providence, Verdi and Piave were redeemed by none other than the Austrian censor himself, a man named Martello, who was not only an avid opera lover, but a man who venerated the great Verdi as well. Martello made the final decision and determined that the change of venue from Paris to Mantua, and the renaming of the opera to Rigoletto adequately satisfied censor requirements. From the point of view of both Verdi and Piave, Rigoletto had arrived back from the censors “safe and sound, without fractures or amputations.”

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he core of the Rigoletto drama – and tragedy – concerns the tensions and conflicts between a father and daughter: Rigoletto and Gilda. Every artist trods on autobiographical terrain, and Giuseppe Verdi certainly cannot be excluded. Verdi’s operatic “father figures” dominate his operas. There is a certain psychological truth when those fathers and their offspring are seemingly alone in the world. Those fathers obsessively overprotect their children, and when a child seems to be threatened by an alternate man, their relationship ultimately leads to an almost incestuous structure, similar in many respects to the relationship between Gilda and Rigoletto. Verdi’s relationship with his own father was full of constant conflict, tension and bitterness. He claimed that his father never seemed to have understood him, and even accused his father of jealousy and envy as he transcended his parents’ social and intellectual world. As a result, Verdi was virtually estranged from his father, but within his inner self, he longed for fatherly affection and understanding. In a more tragic sense, Verdi’s young daughter and son died in their childhood, preventing him from lavishing parental affection on his own children, an ideal that lies deep within the soul of Italian patriarchal traditions. But Verdi would express the paternal affection he never had, and the paternal affection he could never give to his own children, in his own unique musical language: his

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operatic creations became the aftershock of those paternal relationships he lacked in his own life. In many of his operas, Verdi presents us with a whole gallery of passionate, eloquent, and often selfcontradictory father figures, fathers who are passionately devoted to, but often in conflict with their children. Those father figures – almost always baritones or basses - present some of the greatest moments in all of Verdi’s operas: fathers who gloriously pour out their feelings with floods of honest emotion and intense passion. In La Forza del Destino, “The Force of Destiny,” the tragedy of the opera concerns a dying father laying a curse on his daughter, Leonora, as the heroine struggles in her conflict between her love for her father versus her lover, Don Alvaro. In La Traviata, Alfredo’s father develops a more profound respect and love for Violetta, the woman whose heart he has broken because of his errant son, than for the son for whose sake he has intervened. The elder Germont’s Piangi, piangi, “I am crying,” is Germont weeping for Violetta as if she were his own daughter. In Don Carlos, a terrifying old priest, the Grand Inquisitor, approves of King Phillip II’s intent to consign his son to death, the father agonizing and weeping in remorse and desperation. And in Aïda, a father, Amonasro, uses paternal tenderness - as well as threats - to bend his daughter Aïda to his will and betray her lover, Rhadames. In Verdi, those fathers are powerful and ambivalent personalities. The tempestuous passions of fathers churn the cores of his operas as suffering sons and daughters sing Padre, mio padre in tenderness, or in terror, or in tears. Fathers and their conflict with their progeny intrigued Verdi to such an extent that throughout his life he would contemplate, but not bring to fruition, an opera based on the greatest of father figures: Shakespeare’s King Lear; it is only coincidence that Rigoletto and King Lear are dramas about paternity that feature a court buffoon.

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nquestionably, it was the title character Rigoletto’s passionate paternal love for Gilda, his daughter, that fired and inspired Verdi to write Rigoletto. But, the fundamental theme of the entire work concerns Rigoletto’s profoundly ambivalent character: the tension in his soul caused by his inner contradictions. Rigoletto is both virtue and evil. Virtue is attractive; evil is repulsive. Rigoletto is that ambivalent man with two personalities perfectly symbolized by the two puppets his costume bears. The essence of Hugo’s paradoxical “grotesque creatures” is that the beautiful and the ugly or the hero and the villain can exist within one human being. Rigoletto

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represents that essence of the duality of human character: a man who is both good and evil: the operatic incarnation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like Macbeth, another ambivalent character, he is also a man who is human in all his wickedness and evil: a man full of hate as he is a man full of love: the defining characteristics of human ambivalence. Rigoletto’s external deformity and ugliness sets him aside as a curiosity, an object of humiliation. Rigoletto, like Merrick’s Elephant Man, or any other freak of nature who is demeaned by society and looked upon as the “other,” is a man who believes he is condemned to a living hell. Rigoletto reasons that his malice derives from his wretched deformity: his deformity is his justification for his sins and his wrongs, his bitterness; and his justification for revenge against Nature. Rigoletto also blames his vile nature and his hatred of the world on the corrupt Duke and the court to whose service his deformity has condemned him. Rigoletto hates the entire corrupt and evil world he lives in: Rigoletto hates himself. In his world, where evil is the rule rather than the exception, Rigoletto readily corrupts his master, willingly helps the Duke in his seductions, contributes to his perversion by pimping for him, pushes him further into vice, and even suggests the murder of any father (Monterone) or husband (Ceprano) who represents an obstacle to his lust. Rigoletto feels justified in mocking the courtiers because they represent the other evils in the world. He hates the nobles simply because they are nobles or simply because these men have no humps on their backs. As a jester and a merciless cynic, he is ruthless and mean, eventually provoking his enemies to avenge his spitefulness, each of whom has at one time or another been his victim and has felt his sting. In Rigoletto’s famous soliloquy in Act I, Pari siamo, “We are all equals,” the moment following Rigoletto’s encounter with the assassin-for-hire, Sparafucile, Verdi created an ingenious recitative that contains all of the formal strength of an aria. Rigoletto expresses the contradictions in his soul when he compares himself to the assassin Sparafucile: Rigoletto is the man with the lethal tongue that is as deadly as the dagger of the assassin Sparafucile. This is a selfintrospective moment, an admission that he is incarnate evil: it is an honest personal revelation that he is indeed mean spirited, unscrupulous, odious, brutish, and malicious.

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he counter-force to Rigoletto’s hatred of the Duke and the courtiers is his passionate love for his daughter, Gilda: that love is the essential ambivalence in his character. The misshapen jester keeps just one part of his evil nature pure: his sensitive and passionate love that he reserves for his beloved daughter. The power of that love serves to redeem him and forces us to vacillate in our feelings about him; on the one hand, he repels us as a man of evil, but on the other hand, we are gradually drawn to him in sympathy, empathizing with his very human suffering. Rigoletto keeps Gilda isolated from the vice of Mantua. He teaches her only virtue and goodness, and brings her up in innocence, faith, and chastity. His greatest fear is that she may fall into evil, because being evil himself, he knows what it is, and he knows what suffering it causes. Therefore, Rigoletto’s treasured Gilda is secluded behind high walls, hidden, shielded, and sheltered from the realities of the wicked world surrounding her. She has been commanded never to leave the house except to go to church under the protection of Giovanna, her nurse. Gilda, the light of Rigoletto’s life, has become his bird in a cage, an overprotection that can almost be interpreted as an incestuous perversion of a father-daughter relationship in the disguise of pure paternal love. On the surface, Gilda is a naïve, simpleminded, and angelic innocent, but her romantic fantasies, her unconscious erotic desires and yearnings, all come to life in the ecstasy of her first love. Gilda becomes overwhelmed - passion overcomes reason - when she meets her first suitor – the Duke in disguise – a man she accepts at face value without question. In a certain sense, as the plot progresses, sweet Gilda is not all that sugary, nor is she exactly snowwhite in her purity, certainly not a sainted, innocent maiden. Gilda can be seen as nothing more or less than a mutinous – if not rebellious – child who defies parental authority. Gilda not only falls in love with the “anonymous” Duke, a man she does not know, but readily consents to sin with him in the sense of her consensual sexual surrender, what Rigoletto will interpret as the Duke’s rape of his daughter. From the very beginning of this story, Gilda is a disobedient daughter: she lies to her father in Act I when she fails to respond to his interrogation and reveal to her father that she is being followed home from church by a stranger; she will further disobey her father in the final act by returning to the scene of her lover’s treachery and watch with broken-hearted incredulity as the libertine Duke tries to seduce Sparafucile’s gypsy sister and accomplice, Maddelena.

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The supreme irony of this father-daughter relationship is that Gilda has even been shielded from Rigoletto himself: she has no knowledge of who her father really is, or what he does. Therefore, perhaps the most pathetic moment of the opera occurs in Act II when the freshly ravished Gilda sees her father in his court jester costume for the first time; it is indeed a tragic moment of shame for both father and daughter.

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t is Monterone’s curse that falls not only on Rigoletto in his role as the mocking, cynical court jester, but also strikes Rigoletto as a father. Rigoletto becomes, just like Monterone, the tragic father who likewise loses his treasured daughter to the evil of the court and the outside world. In the irony of this story, the same Duke whom Rigoletto urged on to indiscriminate libertine escapades, ravishes his own daughter, striking down the jester in his role as father in exactly the same manner as Monterone. Rigoletto challenges defeat with denial. He is unable to face the bitter truth that the Duke ravished his own daughter, and certainly is unable to believe that she willingly consented to be bedded by the Duke. Rigoletto is unable to believe that the evil in the world has invaded his life, or that the altar that he has built for his daughter has fallen and has become overturned. Rigoletto can only vindicate himself by exacting justice through personal revenge on the Duke. Revenge is the failure of reason; it is when savagery overcomes the savage; it is when hatred is recycled; it is when the order inherent in morality becomes chaos. Rigoletto’s words of justification: Egli é delitto, punizion son io, “He is crime, I am punishment.” – revenge reasoned as “an eye for an eye” rather than “turn the other cheek.” In the end, the poignant tragedy of this story unfolds when this vanquished father finds himself alone with the corpse of his beloved daughter, when revenge has been foiled, and when the jester again remembers Monterone’s haunting and portentous curse. In that final scene, Verdi’s music soars upwards, taking us to heaven with Gilda. Screams and melodramatic passion are superfluous when we witness the beloved daughter dying in her father’s arms, a cathartic, passionate moment of suffering that honestly portrays that perennial father-daughter tension so prevalent in Verdi. Hugo ended his drama with Triboulet’s pathetic screams expressing his final anguish: “I’ve killed my daughter.” In Verdi, Rigoletto’s final anguish is: Ah! La maledizione, “Ah! The curse.” Rigoletto blames the curse and not his own actions as the cause of his own tragedy, his personal disaster and catastrophe revealed in the fury and frustration of his final outburst that expresses his ultimate impotence and the failure of his will.

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The Duke is that quintessential operatic cad so familiar to opera-lovers in the roles of Don Giovanni, Pinkerton, or Baron Ochs. He is unquestionably a vicious libertine, a man with a devil-may-care attitude, and a skirt-chaser who lives for conquest. His signature mottoes are expressed in his two arias: Quest o quella per me pari sono, “This woman or that woman, they’re all the same,” or La Donna è mobile, “Woman is fickle.” The Duke, like Rigoletto, is also an ambivalent character. In Act II, the Duke expresses apparent heartfelt tenderness as he laments his presumed loss of Gilda, a longing certainly inconsistent with the crudeness of his historical behavior. In that short, transitory moment of ambivalent sentiment and compassion, the repugnant rake gives away to sentimentality for a moment, exhibiting profound feeling, however fleeting or momentary his sincerity may be when he praises the one person in the world who had inspired him with a lasting love and the fulfillment of his desire: Gilda.

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fter Verdi’s “middle period” was launched in 1851 with Rigoletto, his quest for more intense human passion on the lyric theater stage continued into his next opera, Il Trovatore. In this opera, his central character became the swarthy and ominous gypsy mother, Azucena, a character who dominates the opera story as she savagely recounts the vivid horror of how her mother was brutally led to execution. For Verdi’s 19 th century audiences, archetypal, beautiful heroines and handsome heroes were the only acceptable characters to be seen onstage: villains could be ugly, but could only be secondary figures. Nevertheless, with Rigoletto and Azucena, Verdi introduced exciting wicked people with tragic souls: shocking and repulsive figures. Verdi proved that in making these underdogs of society major protagonists, he was willing to go quite far in his search for the bizarre. In certain respects, these characters with bloodthirsty passions, represented the prelude to realism in opera: the verismo that would overcome the genre toward the end of the 19th century. To the deeply understanding Verdi, common man suffers the need for revenge as genuinely as kings, gods, and heroes. Verdi introduced suffering humanity to the opera stage: Rigoletto, a hunchback, a mocked and cynical character and Azucena, a hideously ugly and reviled gypsy. For both characters, the mainsprings of their actions is revenge which leads to a tragic irony: Rigoletto’s decisions bring about the death of his own daughter, killed by the assassin he hired to murder the Duke; Azucena causes the death of her adored surrogate son

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Manrico, first by admitting under torture that she is his mother, and second, by hiding from her arch-enemy, di Luna, the fact that he and Manrico are actually brothers, an admission that could have saved Manrico. Rigoletto and Azucena are thus the male and female faces of revenge that become defeated: a revenge that ultimately brings about fatal injustice and tragedy. Both operas, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, are therefore masterpieces of dramatic irony. The final horror for both Rigoletto and Azucena is that these protagonists believe they are striking a blow for justice. Rigoletto’s final justification is Egli è delitto, punizion so io, “He is crime, I am punishment.” Azucena repeats her mother’s plea Mi vendica, “Avenge me.” However, in the end, both fail and witness their children lying dead, the only difference between them is that Rigoletto may live on in agony, while Azucena will surely die at the stake as did her mother.

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n Rigoletto, Verdi introduced a treasure chest of glorious music. The opera explodes with melodically charged gusts of powerful and romantic passion. This score brought a vitality to the operatic stage that had never been heard before. Verdi’s musical language now spoke with a new momentum and energy; his music now had an intensity that was brimming over with violent passions, a dark sinisterism, superstition, self pity, raging emotion, and even murderous glee. The opera’s ambience is saturated with a dark and contrasting brilliance of spirit: those biting, ominous declamatory phrases as Rigoletto explodes in fear of Monterone’s curse – La maledizione, or Gilda’s tenderness in Caro nome, delivered in virtuoso coloratura, and of course, the Quartet, a universally acknowledged marvel in which the diverse conflicts of the characters are exposed to the foreground in a brilliant, coherent musical unity. Rigoletto also introduced a more perfect balance between lyrical and dramatic elements. The score structure is more integrated and fused to a more elevated level between text and music than he had ever achieved before. As a result, all of its musical themes are unified, well proportioned, precisely arranged, and organically related to the whole: its sharp and contrasting characterizations and super-charged emotions overwhelm each scene and swiftly speed the opera from one breathtaking climax to another. With Rigoletto, Verdi developed and progressed beyond the patterns established by his predecessors. Even though the music score contains separate numbers, in many instances, his orchestra is not just the traditional

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accompaniment, but an integral part of the drama. In addition, Rigoletto contains many beautiful melodic inventions that link recitative to aria in that no-man’s land or barrier between the end of an aria, and the beginning of another set-piece. Rigoletto provides a vocally charismatic tenor role, but it is the title role, Rigoletto, that remains the greatest part ever written for a high baritone, requiring every emotional stop of which the voice is capable.

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t the time of Rigoletto, Wagner’s theories of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the ideal of the total artwork and his conception of the music of the future started to infest the European opera world; its particular emphasis, that to create true music drama, there must be a synthesis and fusion of text and music. Wagner’s theories eventually transformed and revolutionized 19th century opera, but Verdi’s Rigoletto, with its bel canto, its set-pieces, and its “hit-parade” song style, a certain degree of accompaniments still built on dance-tune rhythmic structure, certainly represent the antithesis of Wagnerism. Nevertheless, Rigoletto is not the music of the past, certainly not that intolerable kind of Italianism in lyric drama that the Wagnerians considered devilish: the operas of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and of course, Verdi. Rigoletto is a valuable reminder that in spite of new ideas and transformations, in its widest sense, the lyric theater does not have to conform to those theories of perfect music drama in order for an opera to become and remain a coherent masterpiece. Rigoletto’s musical lushness and its dramatic passions remain engraved for eternity. Its musical legacy passes into the world’s mind just as familiar sentences from literature become catchphrases and proverbs. In essence, new currents and trends arise and swirl up in opera, purer theories take shape, but Rigoletto holds the stage firmly. So, in spite of Wagnerisms and the eternal controversy between the Italian conception of its own operatic music of the future, the 150 year old Rigoletto goes on and on in perennial favor. A part of the greatness of Rigoletto lies in the fact that it indeed reverently and piously follows the great Italian traditions: a work saturated with beautiful melody in which the voice and melody reign supreme; an Italian opera with vivid beauty and spontaneous power; an opera with gems that seem ageless and continue to remain bright the Duke’s Questa o quella and La donna è mobile; Gilda’s Caro nome and confessional Tutte le feste, Rigoletto’s Pari siamo and Cortigiani, the Si vendetta duet, and, of course, the Quartet.

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erdi himself described Rigoletto as revolutionary, if not a landmark in his career: “the best subject as regards theatrical effect that I’ve ever set to music. It has powerful situations, variety, excitement, pathos; all the vicissitudes arise from the frivolous, rakish personality of the Duke. Hence, Rigoletto’s fear, Gilda’s passions….” Although 13 operas would follow, Rigoletto would always remain Verdi’s favorite work throughout his entire career. The reason may be that Rigoletto is saturated and integrated with a strong dramatic and lyric beauty: poignant expressions of emotion and pathos, despair, romantic agonies, passions of love, and, of course, that tempestuous fury that churns the opera: revenge. Rigoletto is one of Verdi’s supreme lyrical masterpieces: a late flowering of the Italian romantic tradition. Verdi would go forward into his “middle period” to create some of the most enduring works of the operatic canon. Starting with Rigoletto, Verdi began to compose in a totally new spirit with bolder subjects containing greater dramatic and psychological depth. Nevertheless, his Rigoletto represents, in effect, the sum and substance of Italian opera, and, as such, survives as one of opera’s supreme masterpieces.

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