Metropolitan Opera Preview: Rigoletto

Verdi's great tragedy returns for another round at the Vegas tables.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The next whiskey bar: George Gagnifze knocks one back as Rigoletto.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

Verdi's tragedy of a hunchback laboring under a curse and the tyrannical rule of his philandering boss, presented here in the strange disguise of two entertainers working in a rug joint on the Las Vegas Strip. Here, the titular jester is an insult comic á la Don Rickles, and his boss is a lounge lizard singer in the mode of Frank Sinatra.

Recordings Review: The Last Laugh

Dmitri Hvorostovsky takes his final curtain in Rigoletto.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Rigoletto, a role he sang at the Met and Covent Garden.
Photo by Johan Persson, © Royal Opera of Covent Garden

The death of baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky (from brain cancer, last week) sent an earthquake through the opera world. "Dima", as he was known was a beloved figure, for his velvety instrument and leonine stage appearance. Those qualities made him a star: an ideal leading man (in a few operas) or a bad guy you loved to root for in many others. His final recorded achievement, made earlier this year in Lithuania, is the title role in Verdi's Rigoletto

. He was well suited to play such a complex character, one who is both leading man and villain at once.

Opera Review: Piave's Eleven

The Met's "Vegas" Rigoletto breaks even.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Olga Peretyatko in Act I of the Met's current Rigoletto.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2018 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Metropolitan Opera's economic model relies on a careful balance between modern operas (to remain relevant), rarities (to remain interesting) and tried-and-true war-horses like Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto. This month, the company revived its current Michael Mayer production, which moves the tale of a revenge-obsessed jester and a libertine Duke from Ye Olde Mantua to (of all places) Las Vegas, Nevada, roughly around the time that the Rat Pack held sway on the Strip.

Opera Review: Lost Vegas

<b>The Metropolitan Opera bets on Rigoletto.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Tapped out: George Gagnidze is a hapless protagonist in the Met's "Vegas" Rigoletto.
Photo by Richard Termine © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

"You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." --Kenny Rogers, The Gambler.

The Metropolitan Opera's current production of Verdi's Rigoletto transposes opera's action to Las Vegas in the 1960s. In director Michael Mayer's mind, the Duke is a cabaret crooner, surrounded by a "rat pack" of buddies in snazzy lamé jackets. Rigoletto is his opening act, warming up the crowd with insult comedy. The Duke's palace is a casino-hotel, where the outside world exists only behind heavy green curtains. When it bowed in 2013, Mr. Mayer's vision of the opera seemed fresh. However, as Wednesday night's performance showed, this show's luck is running out.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Rigoletto

A new cast takes over the Met's "Vegas" Verdi revue.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Shake it baby: Piotr Beczala goes Vegas in Rigoletto.
Photo © 2015 The Metropolitan Opera.

This year's revival features Simon Keenlyside's return to the Met stage in the title role. He'll be relieved by Željko Lučić who sang this production when it premiered in 2013. The Duke will be sung by original lounge lizard Piotr Beczala, who will eventually be replaced by Stephen Costello. The key role of Gilda--Rigoletto's treasured daughter and the latest object of the Duke's depredations--is sung by Olga Peretyatko, who made a splash a few seasons back in I Puritani. Nadine Sierra sings the later performances.

The Five Scariest Scenes in Opera

We look at harrowing moments in honor of Halloween.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The man who came to dinner: John Tomlinson as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni.
Image from the 1984 film Amadeus © The Saul Zaentz Company/Orion Pictures.

Opera is more than just pretty voices against an orchestra: it is an art form that has fascinated listeners for five centuries. And ever since Monteverdi's >i>L'Incoronazione di Poppea

, composers have gleefully shown bloodshed, murder, rape and (in the case of Hansel und Gretel) cannibalism.
In honor of the month of October and the approach of Halloween Superconductor offers a list of five operatic moments that make us clutch our arm-rests: the most nail-biting, terrifying, out-right harrowing scenes from five famous operas.

(Note to our readers: If you haven't seen Elektra, Rigoletto or Tosca yet (and they're all on the Metropolitan Opera's schedule this season) beware: there be spoilers after the jump.)

Opera Review: Back to the Tables

The Met revives its "Las Vegas" Rigoletto.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Rigoletto (Dmitri Hvorostovsky, right) explains the facts of life to
Gilda (Irina Lungu) in the Met's revival of Rigoletto. 
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Despite a run of strong performances last season and a wave of critical acclaim, the Metropolitan Opera's still-new Michael Mayer production of Rigoletto remains controversial. Mr. Mayer's production updates Verdi's opera to 1960s Las Vegas, transforming the Duke into a Frank Sinatra-type casino entertainer and the titular hunchbacked jester as his opening act: a painfully unfunny insult comic.

Happy Birthday, Maestro Verdi!

The composer turns 200.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

It's not every day a composer turns 200.

Today marks the 200th birthday of Giuseppe Verdi, whose long career and vast output make him the dean among Italian opera composers. So what are we celebrating here, apart from a number?

Verdi's body of work continues to have depth and resonance for the contemporary listener, who can choose from the composer's different career phases. Let's start with the vocal virtuosity and patriotic fervor of his early period, featuring oom-pa-pa rhythms and rousing choruses, music that shaped the conscience of a nation. It was his third opera Nabucco that caught the public's imagination, as the chorus Va, pensiero became an unofficial anthem of the Risorgimento movement that gripped Italy during Verdi's lifetime.

Plácido Domingo Hospitalized

Tenor diagnosed with pulmonary embolism.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Plácido Domingo in the title role of Rigoletto in Mantua.Film still © 2011 Emerging Pictures.

According to a story on Norman Lebrecht's classical music blog Slipped Disc, 72-year old tenor-turned-baritone Plácido Domingo is in a Madrid hospital with a pulmonary embolism.

Opera Review: Trunk Music

The Met rolls out its "Vegas" Rigoletto.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Diana Damrau and Željko Lučić in the final scene from Michael Mayer's new Rigoletto.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

When you think about it, certain operas allow a fluidity of time and place. Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto has always been one of these. In setting the banned Victor Hugo play Le Roi s'amuse, Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave moved the story from France to 16th century Mantua. (That Italian region's noble family, the House of Gonzaga, had long died out, and wouldn't sue.) The libertine King Francois I became a safely anonymous Duke, and the opera was allowed to go forward.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Rigoletto

The Met unveils its new production...set in...Las Vegas?
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Vega$, baby! Zeljko Lucic stars in Verdi's tragedy.
Promotional image for Rigoletto © 2012 The Metropolitan Opera.

When Verdi announced Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'Amuse as the subject of his 17th opera, Venetian forced the composer and his librettist to retitle the opera, change the names of all the characters, and move the action to Mantua. With this new production, director Michael Mayer goes the censors one better, moving the action to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. (At least he didn't re-name the characters.)

Mr. Mayer's production (his first for the Met) is meant to evoke the "Rat Pack" era of the 1950s, when Frank Sinatra and crew held sway over the Strip. Wherever it's set, this remains the powerful tragedy of an overprotective father, his beautiful daughter and his lecherous boss. It is Rigoletto's own "fear and loathing" that inadvertently brings about the demise of the one person he truly loves.

Despite the uprooting of the characters, the cast is consistent with last year's Rigoletto. Zeljko Lucic returns as Rigoletto, opposite the Gilda of German soprano Diana Damrau. Piotr Beczala should be a handsome-voiced Duke, but don't expect him to break into "Fly Me to the Moon."

Rigoletto premieres Jan. 28, 2013.

The Superconductor Father's Day Gift Guide (Verdi Edition)

An irreverent, operatic celebration of Father's Day.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Actor, raconteur, comedian, renaissance man, father of two: Andrew Dice Clay.
His appearance on the site is in no way an endorsement of material performed in his act.

In the course of writing 28 operas, Giuseppe Verdi worked with many different librettos and literary sources. Yet the theme of fatherhood permeates his work, starting with his very first opera, the all-but-forgotten Oberto. In the spirit of Father's Day, here's a gift guide for the Verdi fathers, tailored to the plots of five of his most famous operas.

A Tenor Meets Colbert Nation

Plácido Domingo appears on The Colbert Report.
by Paul Pelkonen.

Plácido Domingo kicks off "La donna é mobile" on last night's The Colbert Report.
Image framegrabbed from the home page of The Colbert Report,
Used for promotional purposes only. © 2012 The Colbert Report/Comedy Central.

Tenor, conductor and impresario Plácido Domingo appeared on The Colbert Report last night. The singer was a genial guest, discussing the title role in Simon Boccanegra and the relevant costs of opera-going.

The 71-year old tenor, who is currently having some twilight success in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra said: "You get your money's worth out of opera. It's pricey but you get something for your money."

He also pointed out that Boccanegra, a pirate-turned-politician in Renaissance Genoa, has the longest death of any of his characters. "So this character," he said "gets poisoned in the second act. It's a slow poison. I die in the third act. So this is the longest it takes me to die." 

Mr. Domingo was scheduled to sing a concert performance of Boccanegra in New York on March 7 with the Opera Orchestra of New York. (That performance was cancelled today, in an announcement from the OONY.) He has also performed the role at the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala and the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden.

Asked by Mr. Colbert why the tenors get all the attention, Mr. Domingo responded by doing an impression of Dos Equis spokesman Jonathan Goldsmith as "The Most Interesting Man in the World." 

Stephen Colbert (in tux) tries his hand at  "La donna é mobile" on last night's The Colbert Report.
Image framegrabbed from the home page of The Colbert Report, 
Used for promotional purposes only. © 2012 The Colbert Report/Comedy Central.

Following the commercial break, the show ended with Mr. Domingo and Mr. Colbert (newly changed into white tie and tails) singing "La donna é mobile" from Rigoletto as a two-tenor duet. The TV host is no heldentenor, but he displayed a potent, if sometimes flat light baritone. His delivery was occasionally covered by Mr. Domingo's more robust voice. 

Watch the full episode here on Colbert Nation.

Verdi: The Best of the Galley Years

Erroll Flynn rows the boat in The Sea Hawk.
© 1940 Warner Bros. Pictures

A Look at Five Great Early Verdi Operas.
Giuseppe Verdi was one of the most prolific and influential composers of Italian opera in the 19th century. In the course of a long career, he made advances in drama and orchestration that changed his chosen art form forever.

Verdi called the period from 1842 (the premiere of Nabucco) to 1851 (the premiere of Rigoletto) his 'galley years'. In that period, the composer cranked out fourteen operas. He had to satisfy a hungry public, a wide range of singers, and the capricious, difficult censors who tried to force the composer from Busetto to radically alter his work.

Here's the top five operas from Verdi's galley years. Chronological order.

1842: Nabucco (premiered Teatro alla Scala, Milan)
Verdi's third opera (and first real success) retold the story of Babylonian Captivity as a blood-and-thunder story. The plight of the captured Jews resonated with the Italian people, and the chorus "Va, pensiero" became a de facto anthem of Italian nationalism. Nabucodonosor became a beloved opera, affectionately known by its diminuitive.

• For more about Nabucco, read the Metropolitan Opera Preview page for the opera.

1846 Ernani (premiered La Fenice, Venice)
Early Verdi operas feature a lot of bandits, from the philosophical robbers of I Masnadieri ("The Bandits") to the romantic pirate of Il Corsaro. The most famous is Ernani, created by Victor Hugo and so honorable that he commits suicide rather than marry the leading lady in the last act. But it is also a great opera with a firebrand tenor part that points the way towards the great things to come in Verdi's mature period. Without Ernani, there would be no Trovatore.

• For more about Ernani, read the Metropolitan Opera Preview page for the opera.

1846 Attila (premiered La Fenice, Venice)
One of the few Italian operas with a bass lead, Attila is known for the swaggering sex appeal of its title character. The barbarian invader is presented as a sympathetic anti-hero brought down by the treachery of a rapidly falling Roman Empire. The line "Take all the world, but leave Italy for me" (actually sung by a Roman general negotiating for his life) became a battle cry as Italy moved toward unification and independence.

• For more about Attila, read our review of the Met's 2010 production.

1847 Macbeth (premiered Teatro della Pergola, Florence. Revised version premiered 1865 in Paris.)
Verdi's version of the "Scottish play" is always known by its English title. That oddity aside, this is a straight-up adaptation of the tragedy of an ambitious Scottish laird who embarks on a murderous march to the throne. Macbeth's leading Lady is one of the composer's most memorable creations: bloody-minded at the start of the opera she is ultimately destroyed by her own harrowing guilt. "Va, il tico maladetto!"

• For more about Macbeth, read the Metropolitan Opera Preview page for the opera.

1851 Rigoletto (premiered La Fenice, Venice)
Most Verdi scholars put this story of a hunchbacked jester at the start of the composer's 'mature' period. It could be argued that Rigoletto is transitional, owing much to the operas that came before. The opening features an onstage banda (small orchestra), playing the lilting rhythm that was an early Verdi trademark. The innovative storm scene (with its humming chorus) and the dark climax owe something to I Masnadieri and Macbeth. Rigoletto sums up and ends Verdi's early period, and is the first peak of his genius.

• For more about Rigoletto, read our Recommended Recordings guide.

Opera Review: The Last Bitter Laugh

Rigoletto returns to the Met

Diana Damrau as Gilda in Rigoletto.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2009 The Metropolitan Opera

On Tuesday night, the Metropolitan Opera presented its third Rigoletto cast of the season, featuring the Serbian baritone Željko Lučić in the title role and the German soprano Diana Damrau as Gilda. Verdi's hunchbacked jester is a frequent visitor to the Met stage. However, this is the final run of the classic Otto Schenk staging of the opera that premiered (with Luciano Pavarotti as the Duke) back in 1989. A new production is scheduled for 2012.


Mr. Lučić has become a familiar presence in recent Verdi performances at the Met. Here, he followed up his excellent Macbeth with a searing portrayal of the title character. Mr. Lučić ruled the Duke's depraved court from his first entrance, embodying the physical aspects of the role while adding the right amounts of leer and sneer. He was even better in the nocturnal encounter with Sparafucile and "Pari siamo", the monologue that followed.

His performance grew in stature in the second act. Panic underpinned his "La ra, la ra's." His address of the courtiers dripped with venom. As he drove the Duke's supplicants from the stage, this deformed figure suddenly ruled the court--exactly as Verdi and Piave intended. His lengthy duet with Ms. Damrau was marred only by her overacting when the baritone was singing alone. The third act was also moving, with Mr. Lučić making the most of the pauses before his discovery of Gilda's corpse. At his last cry of "Ah! La maladizione!" the tragedy was complete, and so was a strong performance.


Giuseppe Filianotti was a disappointment as the Duke. His tenor lacked bloom, sounding tight and compressed during "Questa o quella." He was an underwhelming presence in the first and second acts, gulping liquid between stanzas of "Ella mi fu rapita!" and the following "Parmi veder la lagrime." Although "La donna è mobile" was decent, he mangled the final note in the offstage reprise at the end of the opera. (Perhaps Sparafucile had had enough.) As for everyone's favorite assassin, bass Stefan Kocan sang a compelling first scene with Mr. Lučić, and provided ample bass support in the crucial Act III ensembles.

Fresh from her run in Le Comte Ory, Diana Damrau made a scintillating entrance with "Caro nome", navigating this aria's high coloratura with pin-point high notes and command over Verdi's leaps, trills and ornamentation. She was a distracting presence in the second act, clutching at herself like Lucia and threatening to break into tears at any moment . The third act was better, with moving contributions to the quartet and trio, followed by a heart-wrenching death scene.

Principal guest conductor Fabio Luisi led a drum-tight, rhythmic performance of Verdi's score. The familiar opera was conducted with real pop, from the bated pauses in the Act I prelude to a thundering storm scene in the final act. Mr. Luisi provided expert accompaniment to his singers, but also illlustrated the importance of competent conducting in a succesful Verdi performance. As with the revival earlier this season, this run of the opera continued to use the smaller "touring" set, to make room for the giant machine required for the Ring.

Got Hunch? A Buyer's Guide to Rigoletto

Script for a Jester's Tear: Tito Gobbi as Rigoletto
Rigoletto is the opera that cemented Verdi's reputation as a master of Italian opera, and the first of his "big three" with Il Trovatore and La Traviata immediately following. There are some great recordings in the catalogue, most of them from the middle of the last century. Here's a quick guide to getting the most court jester for your money.

Coro E Orchestra del La Scala cond. Tullio Serafin (EMI 1955)
Rigoletto: Tito Gobbi
The Duke: Giuseppe di Stefano
Gilda: Maria Callas
The same cast that nailed Tosca two years before does a fabulous job with Rigoletto. Callas soars to the top deck, and Gobbi snarls depravedly as her father. Di Stefano is a scheming, smarmy Duke, even though the voice was beginning its decline.

Coro E Orchestra del La Scala cond. Rafael Kubelik (DG, 1961)
Rigoletto: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
The Duke: Carlo Bergonzi
Gilda: Renata Scotto
Kubelik conducts an intelligent reading of the score featuring Fischer-Dieskau as the hunchbacked jester. The German lieder specialist acquits himself well in Italian. Carlo Bergonzi is a fabulous, virile Duke, well matched with the young Renata Scotto.

London Symphony Orchestra cond. Richard Bonynge (Decca, 1971)
Rigoletto: Sherril Milnes
The Duke: Luciano Pavarotti
Gilda: Joan Sutherland
This is the recording I cut my teeth on as a young man. Luciano is at the peak of his form in one of his best roles: the Duke you can't resist. He makes "Quest'o quella" sound like a reasonable philosophy. Milnes is a tragic torn jester and Sutherland is a pretty, if mature Gilda. Best of all, Martti Talvela as the knife-wielding Sparafucile.

Vienna Philharmonic cond. Carlo Maria Giulini (DG, 1980)
Rigoletto: Piero Cappuccili
The Duke: Placído Domingo
Gilda: Ileana Cotrubas
Giulini's methodical approach to the score is not loved by everybody, but the man conducted a fine Rigoletto. Domingo makes a rare foray into bad-guy territory here, reaching to the very top of his voice and virility. The great Piero Cappuccilli is the thinking man's Rigoletto: equal parts monster and caring father in the title role.

Roma Orchestra di Santa Cecilia cond. Giuseppe Sinopoli (Philips/Decca, 1984)
Rigoletto: Renato Bruson
The Duke: Neil Shicoff
Gilda: Edita Gruberova
For some bizarre reason, the late Giuseppe Sinopoli eliminated the "extra" high notes that thrill lovers of Rigoletto. His version is a bizarre, Shakespearean drama through a cracked looking glass. Renato Bruson is a towering hunchback, well matched with Gruberova, who also filmed the role of Gilda with Pavarotti a few years before.