Verdi’s towering opera tells a tragic tale. Rigoletto, a jester employed by a rich and dissolute Duke, is forced to keep his master well supplied with fresh conquests. As a web of court intrigue tightens around him, Rigoletto finds himself the victim of a grave curse, but it is his carefully protected daughter Gilda who is the one to suffer. Read more …
From the aching naivety of Gilda’s first love to the Duke’s unthinking revelry and Rigoletto’s tortured realisation of his failure as a father, Verdi takes the characters from elation to despair in an opera densely packed with extraordinary music.
Director Matthew Richardson brings this operatic classic to the stage in a stylish, intelligent and theatrical production. English baritone Eddie Wade sings Rigoletto in his debut in the role, and Nadine Livingston (Musetta in 2010’s La bohème) brings a fresh innocence to the role of Gilda. Tobias Ringborg conducts.
Sung in Italian with English supertitles.
[The production] has its moments, however, thanks to some fine performances...I left with Verdi's glorious music ringing in my ears, proof of where the real magic of opera lies: in the notes of the score.
This is an intelligent, thoughtful, well balanced and musically adroit production. The staging is a little gimmicky and some of the voices were fighting to compete with the orchestra but on the whole this is a human-sized slice of operatic tragedy with more than enough drama and depth to lose yourself in.
Overall, the singing, the acting and the music from the orchestra were flawless. It’s a shame that the sets and the designs were not of the same supreme quality. Nobody wants opera to survive in a time warp, but anachronistic productions tend to be unconvincing.
Eddie Wade: Interview
Rigoletto
On Tour, from Wednesday May 11, 2011, until Saturday June 11, 2011.
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