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Programme presenting rare and fascinating operatic performances

Programme presenting rare and fascinating performances and vividly communicating the immediacy of the live experience

Opera on 3: Opera on 3: Verdi's Rigoletto

Opera on 3: Verdi's Rigoletto

BBC Radio 3 - Opera on 3, Opera on 3: Verdi's Rigoletto

Carlos Álvarez stars in Verdi's great tragedy from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Carlos Álvarez stars as the hunchbacked jester whose implacable quest for vengeance brings only personal tragedy in this new production from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Rigoletto is the Duke of Mantua's hunchbacked jester who revels in mocking and humiliating the courtiers by encouraging the Duke to have his way with their wives and daughters. But in the end it is his own daughter Gilda who is raped by the Duke, and in his quest for vengeance it is Rigoletto himself who unwittingly commissions her murder.

Verdi's compelling masterpiece of ineluctable fate and the futility of retribution is full of profound psychological insights and some of his greatest music including the Duke of Mantua's jaunty, ever-popular aria 'La donna è mobile' which, as he sings of the inconstancy of women, is a grotesque moment of blackly humorous dramatic irony.   

Recorded last month, this new production from the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, is introduced by Tom Service in conversation with Flora Willson and includes comments from director Oliver Mears, Antonio Pappano (conducting Rigoletto for the first time at the ROH) and members of the cast. 

Verdi: Rigoletto

Act 1

7.40 pm
Interval

7.55 pm
Acts 2 & 3

Rigoletto.......Carlos Álvarez (baritone)
Duke of Mantua.......Liparit Avetisyan (tenor)
Gilda.......Lisette Oropesa (soprano)
Sparafucile.......Brindley Sherratt (bass)
Maddalena.......Ramona Zaharia (mezzo-soprano)
Count Monterone.......Eric Greene (baritone)
Giovanna.......Kseniia Nikolaieva (mezzo-soprano)
Marullo.......Dominic Sedgwick (baritone)
Matteo Borsa.......Egor Zhuravskii (tenor)
Count Ceprano.......Blaise Malaba (bass)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Antonio Pappano (conductor)

Photo: ©2021 ROH/Ellie Kurttz

SYNOPSIS

Act I
The Duke of Mantua hosts a magnificent party, during which his jester, Rigoletto, cruelly mocks the assembled courtiers, the husbands and fathers of the many women his master has seduced.  One of them, Monterone, curses Rigoletto. The jester fears for the safety of his own daughter, Gilda, whom he has hoped to protect from the predations of men by keeping her existence and her home a secret. 

A terrified Rigoletto hurries home to check on his daughter but the Duke who has seen her in church (the only place outside her house that Rigoletto has allowed her to go) has followed her home.  After Rigoletto leaves, the Duke and Gilda meet and he pretends to be a poor student and professes his love for her, which Gilda returns.  

The courtiers think that Gilda is Rigoletto's secret mistress, and plot to kidnap her in revenge for the jester's cruelty.  When Rigoletto discovers the group near his home, they claim to be kidnapping a courtier's wife to take to the Duke, and Rigoletto holds a ladder to help whilst wearing a mask to cover his eyes.  Removing it he realises the betrayal, and remembers the curse.  

Act II
The next morning Rigoletto returns to the court distraught, desperately looking for his daughter and begging for her return.  Gilda bursts in crying and tells Rigoletto how she had been handed over by her kidnappers to the Duke.  Rigoletto swears they will get revenge on the Duke and then leave Mantua, despite Gilda's pleas for mercy.   

Act III
Rigoletto and Gilda follow the Duke to a tavern where Gilda is devastated to see him repeat his professions of undying love, this time for Maddalena, sister of the assassin Sparafucile.  Rigoletto disguises Gilda as a man and tells her to go to Verona, where he will meet her later.  

Rigoletto pays Sparafucile for the Duke's murder.  Maddalena protests, but Sparafucile insists the Duke will die unless another victim is found before midnight.  

The disguised Gilda overhears the conversation and decides to sacrifice herself instead of the Duke.  She knocks on the tavern door and is stabbed by Sparafucile.  Rigoletto appears and Sparafucile hands him a sack containing what Rigoletto assumes is the Duke's body.  Rigoletto opens it and instead discovers his own daughter. Gilda dies in his arms and he realises that the curse has been fulfilled.

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