Giuseppe Verdi
(1813-1901)
Rigoletto (Highlights)
Melodrama in 3 Acts
Libretto: Francesco Maria Piave
Duke of Mantua - Yordy Ramiro, tenor
Rigoletto, a court jester - Eduard Tumagian, baritone
Gilda, his daughter - Alida Ferrarini, soprano
Sparafucile, a hired assessin - Jozef pacek, baritone
Maddalena, his sister - Jitka Saparova, contralto
Giovanna, Gilda's nurse - Alzbeta Michalkova, contralto
Marullo - Peter Subert, tenor
Borsa Matteo - Jozef Abel, tenor
Court Ceprano - Robert Szucs, tenor
Courtiers - Ladies - Pages - Halberdiers
The scene is set in the city of Mantua and its environs. The period is the 16th Century.
Slovak Philharmonic Chorus
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Rahbari, conductor
Giuseppe Verdi's career spans three quarters of
the nineteenth century. He was born in 1813 at Le Roncole, near Busseto, the
son of a tavern-keeper, and distinguished himself locally in music. The encouragement
and patronage of his future father-in-law, Antonio Barezzi, a merchant in
Busseto, allowed him further study in Milan, before returning to Busseto as maestro
di musica. His first venture into opera, a reasonably successful
one, was in 1839 with Oberto. This was followed, however, by the failure
of Un giomo di regno, written at a period when the composer suffered the
death of his wife and two children. His early reputation was established by the
opera Nabucco, staged at La Scala in Milan in 1842.
Verdi's subsequent career in Italy was to bring him unrivalled fame, augmented by his reputation as a patriot and
fervent supporter of Italian national unity. His name itself was treated as an
acronym for the proposed monarch of a united Italy, 'Vittorio Emanuele Rè
d'Italia', and much of his work in the period of unification was
susceptible to patriotic interpretation. His long association with the singer
Giuseppina Strepponi led to their marriage in 1859, the year of Un ballo in
maschera. He completed his last opera, Falstaff, in 1893, four years
before her death, but felt himself unequal to further Shakespearian operas that
were then proposed. He died while staying in Milan, early in 1901, his death
the subject of national mourning throughout Italy.
The opera Rigoletto was first staged at
La Fenice in Venice on 11 March, 1851. A year earlier Verdi had expressed his
delight with Victor Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse, finding in Triboulet,
the central character, a creation worthy of Shakespeare. He urged his librettist
Francesco Maria Piave, poet and stage manager of La Fenice, to secure the
approval of the censors as soon as possible. Piave did as Verdi suggested, but
whatever verbal approval he had from the censors was denied when it came to the
point. The operatic version of Le roi s'amuse under the title La
maledizione (The Curse) was stimatized as immoral and obscene. The
obscenity lay chiefly in the fact that the plot deals with the unscrupulous
activities of a profligate king.
Piave's first suggested changes did not please
Verdi. The King, Francis I, was to be a mere nobleman, the Duke of Ventignano,
and there was to be no plot to kill him, while the murdered Gilda's body was
not to be concealed in a sack: Triboletto, the original of Rigoletto, the court
jester, was not to be an ugly hunchback. Negotiation with the censors followed,
and something of Victor Hugo was restored. The villain was to be Vincenzo
Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, referred to only as the Duke of Mantua, the deformity
of the jester was permitted and there was no longer any objection to the sack.
Censorship had caused delay and frustration, but by the end of December 1850
the matter was near enough to a settlement to allow Verdi to proceed with the
composition in time for the carnival season.
Verdi had not only been angered by the censors
and consequently impatient with Piave. He had also had serious reservations
about the proposed prima donna, Signora Sanchioli, known, Verdi
suggested, for her Michelangelesque poses. The final cast had Teresa Brambilia
as the first Gilda, a 38-year-old singer, one of seven sisters well known on
the operatic stage. The French-Italian baritone Felice Varesi, who had created
the Verdian rôle of Macbeth, was the first Rigoletto, and the part of the Duke
was taken by the tenor Raffaele Mirati. Varesi's daughter later recalled her
father's doubts about the possible reaction of the audience to his appearance
as a hunchbacked buffoon and how Verdi pushed him onto the stage at the first
performance, causing him to stumble, but at the same time impressing the
audience, enraptured by such a dramatically appropriate entrance.
Rigoletto
, as the opera was now known, was an immediate
success with the public, and was received equally well in Paris, where even
Victor Hugo approved, and in 1853 in London. In Rome the censors had their
revenge, and Rigoletto now became Viscardello, a title and opera
that Verdi disowned.
The opera, set at the ducal court in 16th
century Mantua, opens, after the Overture [Track 1], with a scene in which the
Duke has his heart set on the seduction of the wife of Count Ceprano. In a Ballata
[2] he explains how all beauties are the same to him and he has no intention
of tying himself to a single one. Rigoletto, the hunch-backed court jester,
abets the Duke in his seduction of the Countess, mocking the cuckolded husband,
who swears revenge on Rigoletto. Count Monterone, whose daughter has been
wronged by the Duke, responds to Rigoletto's mockery by pronouncing a curse on
him and his master. In the second scene, set in a blind alley outside
Rigoletto's house, the jester meets Sparafucile, a hired assassin, who offers
him his services, should he ever need them. Rigoletto, alone, draws a
comparison between himself and the murderer, he killing with his tongue and the
other with his sword: he recalls Monterone's curse and expresses his contempt
for the courtiers of the Duke [3]. Entering the courtyard of his house, he is
greeted by his daughter Gilda, recently released from her convent school, her
presence hidden from the court [4]. She asks about her mother, but he refuses
to answer, although he remembers her with fondness: all his love is now for
Gilda, his whole universe. Rigoletto summons Gilda's nurse Giovanna, and asks
if there have been any visitors, bidding her watch Gilda closely. The Duke,
however, disguised as a student, bribes Giovanna to ensure her silence and is
surprised to see Rigoletto there, not knowing his relationship with Gilda, whom
he has followed on the way to church. Once Rigoletto has gone, the Duke
declares his love [5], giving her an assumed name and not revealing his true
identity. Once he has gone, she muses on his dear name [6]. The courtiers,
meanwhile, gathered in the street outside, think that Gilda must be Rigoletto's
mistress and plan her abduction, a procedure in which Rigoletto himself is
induced to help, thinking that they are abducting Count Ceprano's wife. Masked,
he holds the ladder for them to climb his own garden wall. They carry out their
scheme [7], ready to mock Rigoletto the next day.
Act II takes place in the Duke's palace once
more. The Duke is agitated [8], since Gilda has been taken from him: when he
returned to her house, he had found her gone, and he imagines her tears and the
danger she is in. His mood changes when his courtiers reveal what they have
done and the identity of their victim. When Rigoletto comes in, affecting
unconcern, the courtiers mock him [9]. Still pretending indifference, he tries
to find out where Gilda is. The Duchess requests her husband's presence, but
the courtiers make excuses. Now Rigoletto realises that Gilda is with the Duke
in an inner room and the others now understand that they have abducted
Rigoletto's daughter. Now he curses them all, damned race of courtiers [10],
and in desperation tries to open the doors of the inner chamber, to be held
back by the courtiers, while he begs them all to have pity on him. Gilda comes
out, throws herself into her father's arms, and tells him what has happened,
how the Duke first deceived her [11]. Rigoletto accepts the dishonour as his
alone and tries to comfort his daughter. Monterone enters, frustrated that his
curse has not harmed the Duke, but Rigoletto now promises him the revenge he
has sought.
Act III is set outside the city by the banks of
the River Mincio. There is a rough building, a hostelry below and rough stairs
leading to a grain-store above. Gilda and her father are in the street outside,
while the Duke, disguised now as an ordinary officer, drinks within, singing of
the fickle nature of women [12]. The assassin Sparafucile returns with wine and
knocks on the ceiling, a signal to his sister Maddalena to come down to
entertain their guest. Sparafucile leaves them together and goes out to
Rigoletto, who assures him that this is the one he must kill. Inside the Duke
now declares his love for Maddalena, to the distress of Gilda, who, with her
father, overhears this evidence of perfidy. The Duke is vehement in his
protestations, but Maddalena makes light of them [13]. Rigoletto, meanwhile, is
set only on revenge. While Sparafucile prepares to murder the Duke, Maddalena
regrets the death of such a handsome young man for the mere twenty scudi paid
by the jester. Eventually he agrees that if another visitor appears before
midnight, when Rigoletto will return, they may kill him instead. Ironically it
is Gilda who returns, now dressed as a man, anxious to save the Duke, and it is
her that Sparafucile kills. When Rigoletto returns to claim his victim, he is
given a body in a sack. He gloats over his supposed victim, but then the voice
of the Duke is heard above, singing his song on the faithlessness of women. To
his horror, he discovers the victim of his own revenge to be his daughter, now
very near to death [14]. He kneels by her side, calling on her to answer him
and then knocks on the door of the tavern, but no one answers. As she dies,
Gilda confesses her love, while Rigoletto blames himself for causing her death:
now, though, she will be in Heaven with her mother and will pray for her
father. Gilda's death brings again a bitter realisation of the working of
Monterone's curse, as he falls distraught by the body of his daughter.
Keith Anderson
