Rigoletto
Melodrama in Three Acts (1851)
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Victor Hugo

Duration: Approx. 2 hours 40 minutes, including one intermission after Act I
Language: Performed in Italian with German and English surtitles
Recommended age: 12 and above

When Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse was first—and, for the time being, last—performed in Paris in 1832, the production was banned immediately after its premiere. Nearly twenty years later, when Giuseppe Verdi, the composer of the Italian Risorgimento, set out to adapt the work of the revolutionary French writer into an opera, he too encountered the resistance of the censors.

Although he was forced to rename his melodrama from La maledizione (The Curse) to Rigoletto and relocate the action to the court of a fictional Duke of Mantua, Verdi left both the plot and its brutal intensity intact. Rigoletto encourages the licentious Duke in his endless seductions and abductions of beautiful women, showing nothing but mockery toward their families. In return, the desperate father of one of the dishonored women publicly curses him before the entire court. Meanwhile, Rigoletto tries to shield his daughter Gilda from this shameless world. Yet the Duke has already set his sights on her. When Gilda falls victim to the Duke’s powers of seduction, Rigoletto devises a deadly plan of revenge. In the end, however, it is not the Duke but his own daughter who becomes its victim. Ironically, the famous tenor aria La donna è mobile becomes a cynical symbol of failure. In Verdi’s first mature masterpiece, the trivial and the grotesque intertwine with lofty pathos. The striking contrasts between brilliant band music and deeply expressive lyrical melodies create an uncompromising work of genius that overwhelms audiences with extraordinary concision and dramatic force.

Plot

Act one

At one of his lavish parties, the Duke tells the courtier Borsa of a beautiful stranger he has cast his eye upon. But first he dives into the festivities to seek companionship with Countess Ceprano, another object of his desire. Court jester Rigoletto mercilessly mocks Count Ceprano for this. In the meantime, Marullo tells the other courtiers about his discovery that Rigoletto has a secret love. To make his way free for the Countess, Rigoletto suggests that the Duke simply have Ceprano executed, a cynical suggestion that the Duke takes with humor, but Ceprano and the other courtiers demand punishment for Rigoletto. Now Count Monterone crashes the festivities and demands angrily to be heard. But Rigoletto only has ridicule for him, who was convicted of high treason, but only pardoned when his daughter offered the Duke sexual favors. Monterone curses the shameful shenanigans of the duke and his court jester before he is taken away.
Thinking about the curse, Rigoletto makes his way home and on the way meets the hired killer Sparafucile, whose services he declines. Instead, he enters his home where his daughter Gilda awaits him. She knows nothing about her father’s work, not even his name, and is only allowed to leave the house to attend mass, closely guarded by the housekeeper. After a conversation with her about her being his entire family after the death of her mother, Rigoletto departs again. In the meantime, the Duke has bribed Giovanna and thus gets access to the home of the woman he so desires. Gilda remains behind with pangs of conscience, since she has kept it secret from her father that she has seen a young man at church whom she has fallen in love with. In that very moment, he is standing before her in the shape of the Duke, who pretends to be a student named Gualtier Maldé and declares his love for her. Gilda is thrilled. Sounds from outside force “Gualtier Maldé” to leave. There, courtiers are planning to kidnap Gilda, whom they take for Rigoletto’s mistress. When he himself arrives, Marullo pretends that it is the Countess Ceprano they want to abduct. Rigoletto offers his help and only discovers the deception when it is too late and Gilda is already gone.

Act two

The next morning, the Duke is deeply concerned, because when he returned to Gilda last night he was unable to find her. His worries are assuaged when the courtiers report that they have abducted Gilda to the palace. The Duke rushes to meet her. Rigoletto also suspects that Gilda is at the palace and looks for her. He initially pretends indifference in front of the courtiers gloating maliciously. But when a page is denied entry to the Duke’s room, he knows that Gilda is to be found there. In despair, he pleads for her to be released. Finally, Gilda emerges from the room, throws herself into his father’s arms and admits everything. When Monterone is led past on the way to the dungeon, complaining about the ineffectiveness of his curse, Rigoletto makes the decision to force the Duke to pay for the defilement of his daughter.

Act three

Despite everything, Gilda still loves the Duke. At the dive where Sparafucile is holed up, Rigoletto wants to show his daughter the Duke’s real face. Gilda is forced to watch how the Duke has his fun with Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena. Finally, her father insists that she leave town; he will follow later. Rigoletto plans with Sparafucile the murder of the Duke: at midnight, he will personally take the corpse and sink it in the river. Because of an impending storm, the Duke decides to spend the night at Sparafucile’s. Gilda returns, despite their agreed plan, and hears how Maddalena tries to convince her brother to spare the Duke’s life. Sparafucile then declares himself ready to kill the next stranger instead of the Duke and to hand that body to Rigoletto in a sack, if somebody comes. Gilda decides to sacrifice herself for the Duke. When a brief while later Rigoletto picks up the sack with the body to celebrate his triumph, the singing of the Duke from a distance perplexes him. To his horror, he finds the gravely injured Gilda in the sack, she then dies in his arms. Rigoletto is forced to realize that Monterone’s curse has now befallen him.

In Cooperation with the Metropolitan Opera New York