Game of pride and remorse

by Petar PLAMENOV

23 February (Thursday), 2012
Rigoletto
Main Hall, 19:00

State Opera Stara Zagora
Address:
Stara Zagora, 30
Mitropolit M. Kussev blvd.
Phone: 042 62 24 31

Conductor Krassimir Kashev
Directed by: Frank-Bernd Gotshalk, Germany
Decor: Karel Spanhak
Costume Artist: Maria van der Burg
Choreography: Andreas Pesler
Chorus master: Mladen Stanev
Soloists: Peter Danailov, Janica Nesheva, Alexander Georgiev, Alexander Marulevo, Geo Chobanov, Daniela Dyakova, Delian Slavov, Ivailo Yovchev, Maria Ivanova, Milena Taneva, Milko Mikhailov
With orchestra, choir and ballet of the Stara Zagora Opera

Rigoletto is the opera in three acts with words by Francesco Maria Piave, founded on Victor Hugo’s play, "Le Roi s'Amuse." Produced by Fenice Theatre, Venice, first premiere on March 11, 1851; London, Covent Garden, May 14, 1853; Paris, Théâtre des Italiens, January 19, 1857; New York, Academy of Music, November 4, 1857, with Bignardi and Frezzolini. Caruso made his début in America at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, as the Duke in "Rigoletto," November 23, 1903; Galli Curci hers, as Gilda Chicago, November 18, 1916.In point of date this is the earliest of the Verdi operas which have retained their place in public favour.

Rigoletto" is a distinguished opera. Composed in forty days in 1851, nearing three-quarters of a century of life before the footlights, it still retains its vitality. Twenty years, with all they imply the experience and artistic growth, lie between "Rigoletto" and "Aida." Yet the earlier opera, composed so rapidly as to constitute a tour de force of musical creation, seems destined to remain a close second in popularity to the more mature work of its great composer.

It is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Verdi had been commissioned to write a new opera by the La Fenice opera house in Venice in 1850. Having stumbled upon Victor Hugo's “Le Roi S'Amuse” a play which was banned in France at the time, Verdi was intrigued with the subject matter despite the charges that had led to the play’s banning.



A King as an immoral philanderer and womaniser was not acceptable in Europe at that time. After enormous difficulties with the censors, the “King” was changed into a Duke and the court was moved from France to Spain. The work was secretly referred to by the composers as “The Malediction” (The Curse) and the hunchback, originally called “Triboulet” became “Rigoletto” from the French word “rigolo” meaning “funny”- so Rigoletto was born.

The première, was a triumph, and the Duke's “hit aria”, "La Donna è Mobile", which had not even been sung at rehearsals for fear of unauthorised copying, was sung everywhere in the streets the next morning. Many years later, Giulia Cori, the daughter of the original Rigoletto, Felice Varesi, revealed that her father was so uncomfortable wearing the false hump, he had a panic attack just before going on. Realising he was paralysed with fear, Verdi pushed him roughly from the wings causing him to stumble onstage. The audience, thinking it was a gag, roared with laughter. Today, “Rigoletto” remains one of the most regularly performed and popular operas.

At a ball in the palace of the Duke of Mantua, the court jester Rigoletto, a hunchback, taunts Count Ceprano, whose wife is the target of the Duke’s wandering eye. Count Monterone, whose daughter the Duke has seduced, pushes his way in and calls a curse on the Duke for destroying his daughter’s honour and Rigoletto for making jest of it. Through trickery, Rigoletto’s daughter, Gilda, is carried off to the Duke to suffer the same fate as Monterone’s daughter. Rigoletto plots his revenge through use of the assassin Sparafucile and his sister Maddalena. But when a court jester plots revenge, who will have the last laugh? Things do not go as planned for Rigoletto as the curse comes back to haunt him.



SYNOPSIS

ACT 1 -- Rigoletto is the Duke of Mantua’s jester. The Duke is a sensual libertine, and Rigoletto abets him in his evil purposes. He assists him to debauch the wives of Count Ceprano and Count Monterone, the latter of whom utters a terrible malediction against him which fills Rigoletto with a fearful foreboding. Rigoletto has a daughter, the beautiful Gilda. Gilda, so far as he can order it, shall never be contaminated by the pernicious influence of the Court. So, to that end, he immures her in an out-of-the-way part of the city. But the Duke discovers her retreat, wins her affections in the disguise of a student, and arranges for her forcible abduction and transference to the Palace.

ACT 2 -- When Rigoletto discovers his daughter there, he is horrified -- horrified especially to find that she loves the Duke. He vows vengeance against Gilda’s seducer, and hires a desperado named Sparafucile to assassinate him. Sparafucile is the proprietor of a lonely wayside inn; and he engages his sister, Maddalena, who acts as a decoy for victims, and is herself enamoured of the handsome Duke, to lure him to the hostelry.

ACT 3 -- The Duke arrives at the inn, and makes love to Maddalena, singing the familiar "La donna e mobile." Meanwhile, Rigoletto has been persuading Gilda to rig herself out as a cavalier, with the object of escaping from the Palace. But before she flies, he sends her to the door of the inn that she may prove for herself the Duke’s faithlessness. Maddalena has fallen more than ever in love with the Duke, and, making an appeal to her brother, gets him to promise that he will spare the Duke’s life on condition that he may kill the first person who enters the inn. For Sparafucile had bound himself to bring the Duke’s body in a sack to Rigoletto before claiming his reward. Gilda, overhearing the discussion in the inn, and still infatuated with the Duke, resolves to save his life. She knocks for admittance, and is promptly stabbed by Sparafucile. Rigoletto, coming for the supposed victim’s body, opens the sack, discovers his daughter, and falls senseless upon her. The opera ends with the prostration of Rigoletto, whose dreaded forebodings of Count Monterone’s terrible curse are thus literally realised.

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