Rigoletto

Melodramma in tre atti

From Victor Hugo’s original “Le roi s’amuse”, Giuseppe Verdi produced the first of his “popular trio of operas” (along with Il Trovatore and La traviata), which confirmed his artistic genius in the mid-nineteenth century.

Censorship at the time prevented the representation of a philandering king – depicted as Francis I of France in Victor Hugo’s work – so Verdi replaced him with an anonymous Duke of Mantua (perhaps alluding to Vincenzo I Gonzaga). However the true protagonist of the opera is Rigoletto, the court jester, a sad clown imbued with the sense of the dramatic, that had no precedents in the history of Opera. The passions of other characters are woven around Rigoletto: the utopian and betrayed love of the daughter Gilda, the cocksure and cynical duke of Mantua, the voluptuous Maddalena, the double-crossing of the Courtiers. A tale destined to end in tragedy, in pursuit of the “terrible” vendetta plotted by Rigoletto to save the honour of his daughter. In fact it is Rigoletto who suffers the consequences.

CONDUCTOR

DIRECTOR

CAST

COMPOSER

STAGE DESIGN

DAVIDE AMADEI

COSTUME DESIGN

CARLA RICOTTI

LIGHTING DESIGN

CLAUDIO SCHMID

LIGHTING

DANIELE NALDI

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT

VALENTINA BRUNETTI

STAGE SET MANAGEMENT 

ISA TRAVERSI

 CHOIR CONDUCTOR

ALBERTO MALAZZI

In cooperation with ‘Scuola di Teatro di Bologna Alessandra Galante Garrone’