Rigoletto Page 1

Rigoletto

Italian opera in three acts

Music

by

Giuseppe Verdi

Premiere at the Gran Teatro La Fenice, Venice,

March 1851

Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Victor

Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse,

(The King Has a Good Time)

Adapted from the

Opera Journeys Lecture Series

by

Burton D. Fisher

Story Synopsis

Page 2

Principal Characters in the Opera

Page 2

Story Narrative with Music Highlights

Page 3

Verdi…..and

Rigoletto

Page 15

Opera Journeys™ Mini Guide Series

Published © Copywritten by

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Story Synopsis

Rigoletto is a grim and brutal melodrama.

Rigoletto, deformed and hunchbacked, is a jester in the
16

th

century Court of the Duke of Mantua. Rigoletto

mocks and outrageously insults the husbands and fathers
of his master’s amorous conquests, eventually provoking
the noble Monterone, whose daughter had been raped
by the Duke, to pronounce a father’s curse on him.

Rigoletto himself has a young daughter, Gilda,

whom he overprotects by secluding her from the outside
world. Unknown to Rigoletto, Gilda falls in love with
the Duke after she meets him when he is disguised as a
poor student. The courtiers of the Mantuan court, seeking
revenge against the despised court jester, believe Gilda
to be Rigoletto’s mistress. They conspire to abduct her
and deliver their prize to the libertine Duke.

When Rigoletto finds Gilda in the Duke’s palace,

he vows revenge and punishment against his master for
the rape of his beloved daughter; he hires the
professional assassin, Sparafucile, to murder the Duke.
Sparafucile’s sister and accomplice, Maddalena, becomes
infatuated with the Duke and persuades her brother to
fulfill his murder contract by killing the next person
who enters their inn.

Instead of the Duke, Gilda sacrifices her life for

her new-found love and becomes the victim of
Sparafucile’s sword. In a tragic irony of failed revenge,
the corpse delivered to Rigoletto is his own beloved
daughter, Gilda.

Principal Characters in the Opera

Rigoletto, a court jester

Baritone

Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter

Soprano

Duke of Mantua

Tenor

Giovanna, Gilda’s nurse

Soprano

Sparafucile, a hired assassin

Bass

Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister

Soprano

Monterone, a nobleman

Bass

Count Ceprano, Countess Ceprano, Borsa,

Marullo, and courtiers

Time and Place: 16th century,

The city of Mantua, Italy

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Story Narrative and Music Highlights

Prelude:

A short prelude, somber, ominous, and menacing,

musically presages the forthcoming tragedy. In the very
first scene, Rigoletto will have mocked the aged
nobleman, Monterone, for damning the Duke as the
rapist of his daughter. In return for his insolence,
Monterone pronounces a father’s curse on Rigoletto,
the fear of the curse echoing throughout the drama and
haunting Rigoletto.

The musical motive of the prelude underscores

Rigoletto’s fear and horror when he recalls Monterone’s
curse: Quel vecchio maledivami!, “That old man cursed
me!”

ACT 1 - Scene 1: A Salon in the Ducal Palace

An elegant assembly of courtiers, ladies, and pages,

are gathered in a magnificent salon in the Duke’s palace.
The festive air is accented by lighthearted, elegant dance
music played by an off-stage band; the trivial gaiety is a
profound contrast to the grotesque reality of the scene
which is pervaded by banality, evil, and depravity. The
ambience suggests a Roman orgy, or the circus-like
decadence of a Felliniesque La dolce vita.

Off-stage Dance Music:

The Duke of Mantua strolls through the crowd

while in conversation with Borsa, one of his courtiers,
enthusiastically telling him about a beautiful young girl
he saw in church and has been pursuing incognito for
the past three months. He relates how he followed her
to her small home located in a narrow lane in a remote
part of the city, but has been confused by the appearance
of a mysterious man who visits her every evening.

The Duke’s attention wanders to a group of

women who cross before him. Among them is the
Countess Ceprano, whom he immediately praises for her

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beauty, heedless to Borsa’s counsel that her husband, the
Count Ceprano, should not overhear his amorous overtures.

The Duke responds to Borsa’s caution by expounding

his libertine, chauvinist philosophy about women: Questa o
quella per me pari sono, “This woman or that woman? For
me, they are all the same.” The Duke’s cynicism expresses
the view that one pretty woman is the same as any other;
today this one pleases him, tomorrow another. He speaks of
fidelity as “a tyrant to shun like a bad disease,” scornfully
affirming his freedom to love according to his whims, and
flamboyantly ridiculing cuckolded and jealous husbands.

Questa o quella per me pari sono

Indifferent to Count Ceprano’s rage, the Duke

fervently continues his flirtations with the Countess,
kissing her hand and telling her he is “drunk with love
for her.” After the Duke wanders off with the Countess
to an adjoining room, Rigoletto, the hunchbacked court
jester, arrives and immediately taunts and provokes the
furious Count Ceprano, adding fuel to his outrage by
implying that the Duke is enjoying the willing favors of
the Countess.

After Rigoletto goes off to follow the Duke and

the Countess Ceprano, to the merriment of the other
courtiers, Marullo breaks the news that he has discovered
that the ugly old jester has a mistress, a woman whom
he visits every night. The courtiers react in disbelief,
suggesting to Marullo that pandering by this sexually
repulsive hunchback must surely be an hilarious joke.

The Duke returns to the festivities and confides

to Rigoletto that the Countess Ceprano would be a
wonderful conquest, however, her husband is an
impediment and he would like to get rid of him. The
malevolent Rigoletto adds fuel to the fire and casually
suggests prison, exile, or even execution for the Count,
saying with nonchalance: “so what, what does it matter?”
Ceprano overhears their nefarious conversation, fumes
with revenge, and reacts violently, barely restraining
himself from drawing his sword against Rigoletto.

The Duke berates Rigoletto, suggesting that this

time he has gone too far; nevertheless, the jester feels
secure in his unlimited trust in the Duke’s protection.
All the courtiers have at one time or another been victims of
the malevolent derision of the contemptuous court jester.

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Rigoletto’s jibes at Ceprano have pushed the envelope, and
this time, the courtiers readily agree with Ceprano that they
will meet him later that evening to plot revenge on the
hunchback. Their revenge on Rigoletto will be the ultimate
irony to Rigoletto’s scorn: they will follow Rigoletto’s own
suggestion to the Duke and will abduct his “mistress.”

The stern voice of Count Monterone is heard

outside, demanding to be admitted. Monterone confronts
the Duke and denounces the profligate libertine for
seducing his daughter. Rigoletto mocks and ridicules the
old man, but Monterone continues his protest and
declares that dead or alive, he will haunt the Duke for
the rest of his days.

The Duke’s response is to order that Monterone

be arrested. The relentless Rigoletto continues to insult
the outraged father, ultimately inflaming Monterone
to curse the Duke, as well as to damn the court jester.
Monterone, the austere voice of divine justice, curses
the evil Rigoletto: “As for you, serpent, you can laugh
at a father’s anguish; a father’s curse be on your head.”
It is Monterone’s second curse, directed solely at
Rigoletto, that makes the jester freeze with horror.

The courtiers resume their festivities as

Monterone is led off by guards. Rigoletto trembles with
fright and terror, and recoils in fear; Monterone’s curse
is firmly implanted in his soul.

Scene 2: A deserted and dark street

Rigoletto, almost totally disguised and wrapped in a

cloak, walks toward his home, paranoid in his fear of
Monterone’s curse: Qual vecchio maladivami! “That old
man cursed me!”

He is followed by an ominous figure who introduces

himself as Sparafucile, a professional assassin-for-hire.
Sparafucile explains the terms of his profession with
the self-conscious rectitude of an honest tradesman,
offering Rigoletto his services at reasonable charges
should he ever need to get rid of any rival for the young
woman he keeps under lock and key.

Sparafucile’s music:

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Sparafucile explains the details of his trade to

Rigoletto; he and his sister, a gypsy temptress, lure their
victims to their Inn and then dispose of them. Rigoletto
indicates no present need for his services, dismisses him,
but indeed makes a point of learning how he can be found in
the future.

Alone, Rigoletto is again haunted by returning

thoughts of Monterone’s curse. He then reflects on his
chance meeting with the assassin for hire, comparing
himself as his equal: Pari siamo! Io la lingua, egli ha il
pugnato…, “We are equals, I use the tongue, you use
the dagger.” Both men indeed share evil: both men are
paid to wound their victims with their lethal weapons;
one with his tongue, the other with his sword.

Pari siamo

In this soliloquy, Pari siamo…, Rigoletto curses

fate and nature for bringing him into the world ugly and
deformed. He further blames the hated courtiers as the
cause of his own wickedness and evil. But again,
Monterone’s curse returns to haunt his thoughts, his
disturbed mood shaken off only when the echo of flute
music returns his thoughts to his beloved daughter, Gilda.

Gilda welcomes Rigoletto:

Rigoletto enters the courtyard of his house and

Gilda rushes joyfully to embrace her father.

Gilda senses her father’s sadness. Rigoletto is

uneasy and agitated. Bordering on fear and panic, he
immediately asks Gilda if she has been out of the house,
fearing that she would fall victim to one of the courtiers
or the evils of the city.

Gilda tries to change the mood; she expresses her

deep love for her father, and asks to know more about
him and her family. Why does her father never tell her
his name? She asks about her mother, and Rigoletto
replies: “Do not speak of misery, of that terrible loss…”

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Rigoletto and Gilda: Deh non parlare al misero

Rigoletto passionately explains to Gilda that she is

his only treasure left in this world, but suddenly, again

preoccupied with fears, he turns to the nurse Giovanna
and reminds her to carefully protect his beloved child;

Gilda is to remain within the walls of their home and

never to venture into the town except on that one day
when the nurse is to accompany her to church.

Ah veglia donna

Noises are heard from the street and Rigoletto

rushes out to investigate. After he leaves, the Duke
slips into the courtyard, sees Giovanna, and throws her
a purse to buy her silence. The Duke remains hidden as
Rigoletto returns.

Unable to allay his fears and suspicions, Rigoletto

questions Gilda if anyone had ever followed her from
church. Gilda responds negatively, assuring her father
that he need not fear for her safety; her mother - an
angel in heaven - is always protecting her.

Rigoletto bids a touching farewell to Gilda, his

parting words mia figlia, “my daughter,” are overheard
by the hiding Duke, and provides him with a surprising
revelation.

After Rigoletto departs, Gilda confesses to

Giovanna her remorse at not having confided to her
father that she has frequently been followed from church
by a handsome young man. As she reveals her love for
this mysterious suitor - t’amo, “I love you” - the Duke
steps out from hiding, embraces Gilda, and then explodes
into a declaration of his love for her.

È il sol dell’anima

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Gilda tries feebly to resist the Duke’s ardor but

surrenders; both join in an ecstatic love duet. In response to
Gilda’s curiosity, the Duke tells her that his name is Gualtier
Maldé, a poor and struggling student.

The voices of Borsa and Ceprano – preparing the

courtier’s intrigue to abduct Rigoletto’s mistress - cause
Giovanna to warn the lovers. Gilda is also fearful that
her father may be returning and insists that her new-
found lover depart. Gilda and Gualtier Maldé – the
Duke – sing a passionate farewell.

Duke and Gilda: Addio, addio, speranza ed anima.

Alone, Gilda sighs joyfully about the poor student

she has fallen in love with, Gualtier Maldé: Caro nome,
“Dearest name, the first to quicken my heart.”

Caro nome

Meanwhile, the courtiers – disguised and masked

- have assembled in the dark night. They notice Gilda
from hiding, and comment on the beauty of “Rigoletto’s
mistress.”

Rigoletto unexpectedly returns, runs into the

courtiers, and they calm his fears and suspicions by
telling him that their mission is to abduct Ceprano’s
wife for the Duke. Rigoletto delights perversely at the
intrigue, points them to Ceprano’s house, and offers
them his help.

The courtiers insist that Rigoletto must also wear

a disguising mask. Thoroughly confused and blinded by
the mask, Rigoletto unwittingly holds a ladder for the
courtiers against what he believes to be the wall of
Ceprano’s house, but in reality, he is holding the ladder
against his own house.

The abductors enter Rigoletto’s house and seize,

gag, and carry away Gilda. A moment later, Gilda’s cries
for help are heard, followed by shouts of “victory”
from the escaping courtiers. But Rigoletto, his ears
covered by the mask, hears nothing. Now thoroughly

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confused and bewildered, he tears off the mask and discovers
that he is in his own courtyard. On the ground, he notices
Gilda’s scarf, and then notices that the door of his house is
wide open. Frantic with fear, he rushes into his house and
finds that Gilda has disappeared.

He comes out of the house dragging the terrified

Giovanna, and staggers in shock on the disaster he has
helped bring upon himself. In agony, he remembers
Monterone’s curse and bursts out: Ah! La maledizione!
“Ah, the curse!” And then, Rigoletto faints.

ACT II: A drawing room in the Duke’s Palace

The Duke is agitated and distraught. He had

returned to Rigoletto’s house; instead of finding Gilda,
he found the house deserted. Certain that Gilda has
been abducted, he is torn between rage that anyone
should have dared to cross him, and pity for the girl
whom he now claims has awakened for the first time,
genuine feelings of affection. The Duke reveals a
heretofore unrevealed sense of sincerity and compassion.

Parmi veder le lagrime

Marullo, Ceprano, Borsa, and other courtiers enter

the drawing room and gleefully – and heartlessly - narrate
their adventures of the previous night, cynically
describing Rigoletto’s unwitting collaboration as they
abducted the girl they believed to be Rigoletto’s mistress.
The Duke realizes that they are referring to none other
than Gilda. He is further delighted when he learns that
they have brought her to the palace. He dashes off to
the conquest, intending to console his new love.

The grief-stricken Rigoletto enters the salon, self-

controlled and pretending nonchalance; his cynicism
conceals his distress and anxiety. The courtiers greet
him with ironical good humor, but in a pathetic
spectacle, Rigoletto searches for clues as to the
whereabouts of his daughter, even snatching up a
handkerchief from the table in the hope that it may
belong to Gilda.

Certain that Gilda is with the Duke and in the

palace, he tries to enter the Duke’s quarters, but the

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courtiers bar his way, telling him that the Duke is asleep and
cannot be disturbed. A page enters to announce that the
Duchess wishes to speak to her husband. The courtiers
respond by pretending that the Duke has gone hunting, but
Rigoletto pierces through the veil of their charade and
intuitively senses the truth: he concludes that Gilda is
definitely in the palace.

Behind a laughing exterior, Rigoletto continues

his search for Gilda. The courtiers mock him, telling
him to look for his “mistress” somewhere else. In a
fury, Rigoletto astonishes them and reveals the truth,
crying out: Io vo’ mia figlia, “I want my daughter.”

Alternating between threats and pleas - and even

force - to enter the Duke’s quarters, in a state of fury
and frustration, Rigoletto violently denounces the
courtiers, simultaneously lashing out at their cruelty
with pleas for mercy: Cortigiani vil razza,dannata
“Courtiers, you cursed race.”

Cortigiani vil razza, dannata

Suddenly, the freshly ravished Gilda rushes out

from the Duke’s apartments and throws herself into her

father’s arms. Rigoletto’s first reaction is one of relief:

in his mind she is safe. Perhaps it was all a joke.

Gilda sees her father for the first time in his jester’s

costume, and each, in a blinding moment of revelation,
realizes their shame. Gilda’s tears convince Rigoletto
that the matter is more serious as she tells her father:
“Let me blush before you alone.”

Gilda admits her guilt and confesses everything

to Rigoletto. She relates how a young student she had
seen in church followed her to her home, and how she
later fell in love with him. When she was abducted and
brought to the palace, she was surprised to find that the
young man was none other than the Duke of Mantua:
Gilda had innocently fallen in love and abandoned herself
to her new love consensually.

Tutte le feste al tempio

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During this poignant and delicate moment, Rigoletto

tenderly attempts to comfort his daughter, but he is confused,
and even in denial. Monterone passes by under guard on
his way to prison. He pauses and directs his chagrined anger
before the Duke’s portrait: “Since I have cursed you in vain,
and no thunderbolt or sword has struck you down, you live
happily still, Duke.”

As Monterone is led away, Rigoletto calls to him,

telling him that he is mistaken: Rigoletto assures him
that they will both be avenged. At this turning point of
the drama, Rigoletto is now transformed into a man of
savage fury. He swears a frightful vengeance on the
Duke while Gilda tries in vain to beg forgiveness for the
man she deeply loves.

Duet: Si vendetta tremenda vendetta.

ACT III: Sparafucile’s Inn on the deserted banks of the
Mincio River.

Sparafucile sits inside the inn, polishing his belt.

Outside, Rigoletto and Gilda watch through a small
opening in the wall.

Still full of romantic protestations, Gilda persists

that she passionately loves the Duke, and truly believes
he will return her love. But Rigoletto believes he can
cure her affectation for this licentious libertine by
bringing her to Sparafucile’s Inn; he well knows that
what she will witness inside will prove to her that her
lover is worthless and capricious.

The Duke, disguised as a cavalier, is seen inside

the Inn ordering wine and a room for the night. Gilda
now hears her lover in his true character. The libertine
Duke once again advances his cynical, chauvinist
philosophy about the fickleness of woman: La donna è
mobile, “Woman is fickle.”

La donna é mobile

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Sparafucile’s sister, Maddalena, the gypsy

enchantress, had lured the Duke to the inn and now
joins him. Gilda and Rigoletto remain outside, watching
the Duke flirt with Maddalena inside the tavern.

The famous Act III Quartet begins with Bella

figlia dell’amore, “Pretty daughter of love.” Each
character’s individual passions stands out in high relief:
outside the inn, Rigoletto seeks revenge while Gilda is
forgiving; inside the inn, Maddalena half-heartedly repels
the Duke’s advances as the Duke pulsates with amorous
passion, prepared to offer her anything, even marriage,
to succeed in his amorous conquest.

Concealed in the darkness outside, Gilda witnesses

the amorous interplay between the Duke and Maddalena,
becoming heartbroken and grim as she witnesses how
lightly they speak of love.

Quartet: Bella figlia dell’amore

Rigoletto persuades the disillusioned and

heartbroken Gilda to return home, dress in male attire,
and set out for Verona where he will meet her the next
day. After she leaves, Rigoletto summons Sparafucile
and hands over half the assassin’s fee for the murder of
the Duke, promising to pay the remainder when the
body is delivered to him in a sack at midnight. Sparafucile
offers to throw the body in the river himself, but
Rigoletto, wanting personal satisfaction, insists that he
will personally return at midnight for the body.

Sparafucile casually asks Rigoletto the victim’s

name, and Rigoletto antagonistically replies: Voui saper
anche il mio? Egli è Delitto, Punizion son io, “Do you
want to know my name as well? He is crime, and mine
is punishment.”

Meanwhile, inside the inn, the flirtations between

Maddalena and the Duke grow more intimate. A storm
has gathered outside, which forces the Duke to stay the
night at the inn. Gilda has returned and overhears
Maddalena announce to Sparafucile that she has been
seduced by the Duke’s charms and has fallen in love
with him. Maddalena attempts to dissuade her brother
from murdering her new-found love; nevertheless,
Sparafucile fails to understand his sister ’s sudden

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sentiment when the real stake is their fee of twenty crowns.

Maddalena suggests to her brother that he kill the

hunchback instead of the man she now endearingly refers
to as her “Apollo.” Citing his honor, Sparafucile refuses
to betray his employer; one does not betray and murder
his own client. Sparafucile offers his sister a compromise:
if another stranger should chance to call at the Inn
before midnight, the hour of Rigoletto’s return, he will
be the murder victim. In either case, Rigoletto will still
have a corpse for his money. If no one appears,
Maddalena’s new love must die.

Gilda has overheard Maddalena and Sparafucile

argue as to which of the two shall die: Gilda’s lover, or
their client, her father Rigoletto. Gilda fears for her
lover’s life, ultimately resolving to sacrifice her own
life for the Duke. Lightning and thunder crack as the
storm increases with sudden and overwhelming fury.
Gilda summons up her courage, knocks on the door, and
calls out: “Have pity on a beggar who wants shelter for
the night.” She then enters the inn and runs into
Sparafucile’s sword. In the darkness, Gilda’s last pathetic
words are heard, “God forgive them.” After a violent
orchestral outburst, all is silent.

As midnight strikes, Rigoletto returns to the inn.

Sparafucile meets him with the sack containing the dead
victim, offers to throw the sack in the river, but Rigoletto
claims his privilege and satisfaction, wanting to savor
the triumph of his vengeance.

The gloating Rigoletto drags the sack toward the

river. In his moment of victory, he proclaims:

Ora mi guarda o mondo! Quest’è un buffone, ed

un potente è questo! Ei sta sotto i miei piedi! È desso!
Oh gioia!

“World look at me now! Here is a buffoon, and a

powerful buffoon! And standing under my foot, it is
him! Oh joy!”

Rigoletto trembles when he hears in the distance

the Duke’s voice singing La donna é mobile. In disbelief,
he cries out that it must be a dream or an illusion. If
not, who is in the sack? It is pitch dark with occasional
lightning providing the only visibility. He tears the sack
open, and a sudden flash of lightning reveals Gilda’s
face. He cannot believe his senses, but the faint voice
from the sack reveals the truth: it is indeed his beloved
Gilda.

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Gilda is dying from her wounds, but with her last

breath, she begs her father’s forgiveness, at the same time,
defending her actions by explaining how much she loved
the Duke.

V’ho ingannato

In a touching farewell, Lassu in ciel, “Up there in

Heaven,” Gilda tells her father how much she truly loves
him, assures him that she will be united with her mother
in Heaven, where they will both pray for him.

Lassu in ciel

Rigoletto cries out, “She is dead.” His screams

reveal the utter futility of this tragic moment of fury
and frustration, his explanation for the collapse of his
world uttered in his last words: Ah! La maledizione,
“Ah, the curse.”
Monterone’s curse has been fulfilled as disaster
overcomes the jester, defeated by his own evil.

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Verdi………………..……….......................…and Rigoletto

B

y the year 1851, the year of Rigoletto’s
premiere, the 38 year-old Giuseppe Verdi was

acknowledged as the most popular opera composer in
the world. He had established himself as the legitimate
heir to the great Italian opera traditions that had been
preserved during the first half of the 19

th

century by his

immediate bel canto predecessors: Rossini, Bellini and
Donizetti.

Viewing the opera landscape at mid-century,

Donizetti had died in 1848, Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète
had premiered in 1849, and Wagner’s Lohengrin had
premiered in 1850.

Verdi composed 15 operas during his first creative

period - between the years 1840 and 1851. His first two
operas, Oberto (1839), and the comedy Un Giorno di Regno
(1840), were received with indifference. His third opera,
Nabucco (1842), was a triumph that overnight transformed
Verdi into an opera icon. He followed with I Lombardi (1843);
Ernani (1844); I Due Foscari (1844); Giovanna d’Arco
(1845); Alzira (1845); Attila (1846); Macbeth (1847); I
Masnadieri (1847); Il Corsaro (1848); La Battaglia di
Legnano (1849); Luisa Miller (1849) and Stiffelio (1850).
Eventually, Verdi would write a total of 28 operas during his
illustrious career, dying in 1901 at the age of 78.

The underlying theme that was the foundation of

Verdi’s early operas concerned his patriotic mission for
the liberation of his beloved Italy, at that time, suffering
under the oppressive rule of both France and Austria.
Verdi, with his operatic pen, sounded the alarm for Italy’s
freedom. Each of those early opera stories was disguised
with allegory, metaphor, and irony, all advocating
individual liberty, freedom, and independence: the
suffering and struggling heroes and heroines in his early
operas were his beloved Italian compatriots.

For example, in Giovanna d’Arco (Joan of Arc),

the French patriot Joan confronts the oppressive English
and is eventually martyred; the heroine’s plight became
synonymous with Italy’s struggle with its own foreign
oppression. In Nabucco, the suffering Hebrews enslaved
by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians were
allegorically, the Italian people themselves, similarly in
bondage by foreign oppressors.

Verdi’s Italian audience easily read the underlying

message he had subtly injected between the lines of his
text and music. At Nabucco’s premiere, at the end of the
Hebrew slave chorus, Va Pensiero, the audience actually
stopped the performance with inspired nationalistic shouts
of Viva Italia. The Va pensiero chorus became the unofficial
Italian “National Anthem,” the musical symbol of Italy’s

Rigoletto Page 16

patriotic aspirations. Even the name V E R D I had a dual
meaning: homage to the great maestro in the form of Viva
Verdi, and also as an acronym for Italian unification; V E R D
I stood for Vittorio Emanuelo Re D’ Italia, a dream for the
return of King Victor Emmanuel.

A

s the 1850s unfolded, Verdi’s genius had

arrived at a turning point in terms of his artistic

evolution and maturity. He felt that his patriotic mission
for Italian independence was soon to be realized, sensing
the fulfillment of Italian liberation and unification in
the forthcoming Risorgimento, the historic
revolutionary event that established the Italian nation
as we know it today.

Satisfied that he had achieved his patriotic

objectives, Verdi decided to abandon the heroic pathos
and nationalistic themes of his early operas. He now
was seeking more profound operatic subjects: subjects
that would be bold to the extreme; subjects with greater
dramatic and psychological depth; subjects that accented
spiritual values, intimate humanity and tender emotions.
From this point forward, he would be ceaseless in his
goal to create an expressiveness and acute delineation
of the human soul that had never before been realized
on the opera stage.

The year 1851 inaugurated Verdi’s “middle

period,” the defining moment in his career, the moment
when his operas would start to contain heretofore
unknown dramatic qualities and intensities, an
exceptional lyricism, and a profound characterization
of humanity. Starting in this “middle period,” Verdi’s
art flowered into a new maturity, resulting into some of
the best loved operas of all time: Rigoletto (1851); Il
trovatore (1853); La Traviata (1853); I Vespri Siciliani (1855);
Simon Boccanegra (1857); Aroldo (1857); Un Ballo in
Maschera (1859); La Forza del Destino (1862); Don Carlos
(1867); Aïda (1871). In his final works, he succeeded in his
advance toward a greater dramatic synthesis between text
and music that would culminate in what some consider his
greatest masterpieces: Otello (1887), and Falstaff (1893).

I

n 1851, Verdi was approached by the

management of La Fenice in Venice to write an opera

to celebrate the Carnival and Lent seasons. In seeking a
story source for the opera, Verdi turned to the new
romanticism of the French dramatist, Victor Hugo.
Seven years earlier, in 1844, Verdi had a brilliant success
with his operatic treatment of Hugo’s Hernani: Verdi’s Ernani.

Rigoletto Page 17

Victor Hugo’s play, Le Roi s’amuse, “The King has a

good time,” premiered in 1832 and depicted the libertine
escapades and adventures of François I of France (1515-
1547), the drama featuring as its primary force, an ugly,
disillusioned, hunchbacked court jester named Triboulet.

Hugo had boldly announced that his plays would no

longer parade one-dimensional protagonists who were either
all-virtuous, or all-villainous. Hugo now created new types
of characters who were complex and ambivalent: personalities
whom he would label “grotesque creatures.” In his play Le
Roi s’amuse, in particular, he created his quintessential
“grotesque creature” in the ambivalent character of the jester
Triboulet: a tragic man with two souls; a physically
monstrous and morally evil, wicked personality, but a
man who was simultaneously, a magnanimous, kind,
gentle, and compassionate human being. Hugo’s
Triboulet – Rigoletto in Verdi’s opera – was outwardly
a physically ugly hunchback, ridiculous and deformed,
as well as mean and sadistic. Yet inwardly, he was an
intensely human creature, a man filled with passion and
unbounded love which he showered on his beloved
daughter. (The name Triboulet is descriptive: it is derived
from the French verb tribouler, meaning to guffaw, to
be noisy, hilarious, or boisterous.)

Verdi had read Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse, but

certainly had never seen the play on stage. Hugo’s play
survived only the one night of its premiere in 1832; its
next performance did not occur until 50 years later in
1882. Censors decided to ban the play from the French,
German, and Italian stages, compounding their criticism
by finding its content overly abundant in its immorality
and its repulsiveness.

But Verdi was now in his crusade to seek more

intense operatic subjects, and recognized in Hugo’s story
those sublime operatic possibilities that would stir moral
passions. He sensed that the character Triboulet was a
creation worthy of Shakespeare: a character who took
human nature to its limits, and through whom, new
levels of consciousness would come into being.

Verdi wrote to his favorite librettist of the time,

Francesco Maria Piave, his librettist for his earlier operas
Ernani and Macbeth - and later La Forza del Destino:

“I have in mind another subject, which, if the

police (censors) would allow it, is one of the greatest
creations of modern theatre. The story is great,
immense, and includes a character who is one of the
greatest creations that the theatres of all nations and all
times will boast.

The story is Le Roi s’amuse, and the character I

mean is Triboulet.”

Rigoletto Page 18

There was intense hostility and animosity in the

historical marriage of Hugo’s dramatic sources and Verdi’s
musical treatment of them. Earlier, Hugo had vigorously
denounced Verdi’s operatic adaptation of his play
Hernani - and later his adaptation of Rigoletto – when
they were staged in Paris, and did everything within his
power to prevent public production of what he
considered a literary mutilation of his works, even
unsuccessfully initiating legal action in the Paris courts
to prohibit their performances.

Hugo was admittedly resentful – and even envious

and jealous – of Verdi’s popularity, but his comments
about the famous Quartet from Rigoletto’s final act
represent his reluctant admission of Verdi’s operatic
genius, as well as his tribute to the unique expressiveness
of the operatic art-form. Hugo commented: “If I could
only make four characters in my plays speak at the
same time, and have the audience grasp the words and
sentiments, I would obtain the very same effect.”
Nevertheless, it was Giuseppe Verdi who would ultimately
provide immortality for Hugo’s play, Le Roi s’amuse.

E

urope’s mid-nineteenth century was a time

of revolution and unrest. Napoleon’s defeat and

the political alliances evolving from the Congress of
Vienna (1813-1815), had given Europe’s ruling
monarchies a renewed incentive to protect the status
quo of their autocracies, all of which were being
threatened by ethnic nationalism, the Enlightenment
sense of individual liberty and freedom: new ideological
forces evolving from the transformations caused by the
Industrial Revolution.

The ability of the continental powers to control

artistic truth was directly proportional to the stability
and continuity of their authority. Censorship –
particularly the control of ideas expressed in the arts –
became the vehicle to regulate and determine that
nothing should be shown upon the stage that might in
the least fan the flames of rebellion and discontent.
Kings, ministers, and governments, all reflected an
apparent paranoia, an irrational fear, and an almost
pathological suspicion of ideas. It was through censorship
that they exerted their power and determination to
protect what they considered “universal truths”:
conservatism would overpower progress.

A perfect example of censorship in action occurred in

France in the suppression of Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse.
Despite the French Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of
expression, the censors’ rationale for banning Hugo’s play
was simply stated without recourse to argument: they
considered the subject immoral, obscenely trivial, scandalous,

Rigoletto Page 19

and even a subversive threat to the status quo. Similarly, in
Verdi’s Italy, ruled by both France and Austria, censors would
reject and prevent the performance of works whose ideas
they considered subversive, or a threat to the social and
political fabric of their society.

The Verdi/Piave adaptation of Hugo’s Le Roi

s’amuse was initially titled La Maledizione, “The Curse.”
In Verdi’s opera, Monterone’s curse is the engine that
drives the drama. The working out of the curse is the
core, essential dramatic force in which the entire plot
devolves. In the opera story, the aged Monterone calls
upon the divine cosmic powers of good to condemn the
offensive Duke and the slanderous Rigoletto, demonizing
them both, but particularly obsessing and overcoming
the jester with fear and haunting him throughout the
drama: the musical theme echoing throughout the opera
- Quel vecchio maledivami, “That old man cursed me”
- always playing in the same key and with the same
instrumentation. In a similar vein, Alberich’s curse –
the Renunciation of love - provides the dramatic thread
for Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung.

Verdi and his librettist Piave were both very much

aware that their opera La Maledizione would provoke
the Venetian censors – Venice was then under Austrian
rule. Indeed, just three months before the scheduled
premiere of La Maledizione, their battle began. The
Austrian censors exploded, totally rejecting the work
and forbidding its performance, and expressing their
profound regret that Piave and Verdi did not choose a
more worthy vehicle to display their talents, rather
than the revolting immorality and obscene triviality
contained in the text of La Maledizione. The censors
considered the theme of the curse to be blasphemously
offensive to prevailing religious proprieties. Verdi and
Piave were far from naïve and their hope was to bring
the Hugo story to the opera stage without severe
mutilation or injury to its dramatic substance.

Their first concession was to change the opera’s

title: the opera title was changed to its title character,
Rigoletto, an adaptation of the French word rigoler, to
guffaw. But the real thrust of the censors’ main objection
concerned itself with the opera’s obscene and despicable
portrayal of the misdeeds and frailties of King François
I. In the story, the King is represented as an
unconscionable, debauched monarch. Royal profligacy in
action could not be staged, nor a royal plan to abduct a
courtier’s wife (Countess Ceprano), nor a royal keeping low
company in a tavern and becoming entrapped by a lowly
gypsy (Maddalena), and most of all, a King could not be
manipulated by a crippled jester and eventually become his
intended assassination victim.

Rigoletto Page 20

Verdi’s next concession was the substitution of the

Duke of Mantua for King François I: In effect, the Duke bore
the anonymity of any Mantovani, an insignificant ruler of a
petty state rather than an historic King of France. But in
addition, the censors were relentless and demanded that
Rigoletto’s daughter, Gilda, should be substituted with his
sister; that the sleaziness of Sparafucile’s Inn in the final
scene should be altered to eliminate its “aura” of a house of
prostitution; and finally, that they eliminate the repulsiveness
of “packing” Gilda – or his sister - in a sack in the opera’s
final moment.

In a stroke of operatic Providence, Verdi and

Piave were redeemed by none other than the Austrian
censor himself, a man named Martello, who was not
only an avid opera lover, but a man who venerated the
great Verdi as well. Martello made the final decision and
determined that the change of venue from Paris to
Mantua, and the renaming of the opera to Rigoletto
adequately satisfied censor requirements.

From the point of view of both Verdi and Piave,

Rigoletto had arrived back from the censors “safe and
sound, without fractures or amputations.”

T

he core of the Rigoletto drama – and

tragedy – concerns the tensions and conflicts

between a father and daughter: Rigoletto and Gilda. Every
artist trods on autobiographical terrain, and Giuseppe
Verdi certainly cannot be excluded.

Verdi’s operatic “father figures” dominate his

operas. There is a certain psychological truth when
those fathers and their offspring are seemingly alone in
the world. Those fathers obsessively overprotect their
children, and when a child seems to be threatened by an
alternate man, their relationship ultimately leads to an
almost incestuous structure, similar in many respects to
the relationship between Gilda and Rigoletto.

Verdi’s relationship with his own father was full

of constant conflict, tension and bitterness. He claimed
that his father never seemed to have understood him,
and even accused his father of jealousy and envy as he
transcended his parents’ social and intellectual world.
As a result, Verdi was virtually estranged from his father,
but within his inner self, he longed for fatherly affection
and understanding. In a more tragic sense, Verdi’s young
daughter and son died in their childhood, preventing him
from lavishing parental affection on his own children, an
ideal that lies deep within the soul of Italian patriarchal
traditions.

But Verdi would express the paternal affection he

never had, and the paternal affection he could never give to
his own children, in his own unique musical language: his

Rigoletto Page 21

operatic creations became the aftershock of those paternal
relationships he lacked in his own life.

In many of his operas, Verdi presents us with a

whole gallery of passionate, eloquent, and often self-
contradictory father figures, fathers who are passionately
devoted to, but often in conflict with their children.
Those father figures – almost always baritones or basses
- present some of the greatest moments in all of Verdi’s
operas: fathers who gloriously pour out their feelings
with floods of honest emotion and intense passion. In
La Forza del Destino, “The Force of Destiny,” the
tragedy of the opera concerns a dying father laying a
curse on his daughter, Leonora, as the heroine struggles
in her conflict between her love for her father versus
her lover, Don Alvaro. In La Traviata, Alfredo’s father
develops a more profound respect and love for Violetta,
the woman whose heart he has broken because of his
errant son, than for the son for whose sake he has
intervened. The elder Germont’s Piangi, piangi, “I am
crying,” is Germont weeping for Violetta as if she were
his own daughter. In Don Carlos, a terrifying old priest,
the Grand Inquisitor, approves of King Phillip II’s intent
to consign his son to death, the father agonizing and
weeping in remorse and desperation. And in Aïda, a father,
Amonasro, uses paternal tenderness - as well as threats - to
bend his daughter Aïda to his will and betray her lover,
Rhadames.

In Verdi, those fathers are powerful and ambivalent

personalities. The tempestuous passions of fathers churn
the cores of his operas as suffering sons and daughters sing
Padre, mio padre in tenderness, or in terror, or in tears.
Fathers and their conflict with their progeny intrigued Verdi
to such an extent that throughout his life he would
contemplate, but not bring to fruition, an opera based on the
greatest of father figures: Shakespeare’s King Lear; it is
only coincidence that Rigoletto and King Lear are dramas
about paternity that feature a court buffoon.

U

nquestionably, it was the title character

Rigoletto’s passionate paternal love for Gilda, his

daughter, that fired and inspired Verdi to write Rigoletto.
But, the fundamental theme of the entire work concerns
Rigoletto’s profoundly ambivalent character: the tension in
his soul caused by his inner contradictions. Rigoletto is
both virtue and evil. Virtue is attractive; evil is repulsive.
Rigoletto is that ambivalent man with two personalities -
perfectly symbolized by the two puppets his costume bears.

The essence of Hugo’s paradoxical “grotesque

creatures” is that the beautiful and the ugly or the hero and
the villain can exist within one human being. Rigoletto

Rigoletto Page 22

represents that essence of the duality of human character: a
man who is both good and evil: the operatic incarnation of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Like Macbeth, another ambivalent
character, he is also a man who is human in all his wickedness
and evil: a man full of hate as he is a man full of love: the
defining characteristics of human ambivalence.

Rigoletto’s external deformity and ugliness sets him

aside as a curiosity, an object of humiliation. Rigoletto, like
Merrick’s Elephant Man, or any other freak of nature who is
demeaned by society and looked upon as the “other,” is a
man who believes he is condemned to a living hell. Rigoletto
reasons that his malice derives from his wretched deformity:
his deformity is his justification for his sins and his wrongs,
his bitterness; and his justification for revenge against
Nature. Rigoletto also blames his vile nature and his
hatred of the world on the corrupt Duke and the court
to whose service his deformity has condemned him.
Rigoletto hates the entire corrupt and evil world he
lives in: Rigoletto hates himself.

In his world, where evil is the rule rather than the

exception, Rigoletto readily corrupts his master, willingly
helps the Duke in his seductions, contributes to his
perversion by pimping for him, pushes him further into
vice, and even suggests the murder of any father
(Monterone) or husband (Ceprano) who represents an
obstacle to his lust.

Rigoletto feels justified in mocking the courtiers

because they represent the other evils in the world. He
hates the nobles simply because they are nobles or
simply because these men have no humps on their backs.
As a jester and a merciless cynic, he is ruthless and
mean, eventually provoking his enemies to avenge his
spitefulness, each of whom has at one time or another
been his victim and has felt his sting.

In Rigoletto’s famous soliloquy in Act I, Pari

siamo, “We are all equals,” the moment following
Rigoletto’s encounter with the assassin-for-hire,
Sparafucile, Verdi created an ingenious recitative that
contains all of the formal strength of an aria. Rigoletto
expresses the contradictions in his soul when he
compares himself to the assassin Sparafucile: Rigoletto
is the man with the lethal tongue that is as deadly as the
dagger of the assassin Sparafucile. This is a self-
introspective moment, an admission that he is incarnate
evil: it is an honest personal revelation that he is indeed
mean spirited, unscrupulous, odious, brutish, and
malicious.

Rigoletto Page 23

T

he counter-force to Rigoletto’s hatred of
the Duke and the courtiers is his passionate love for

his daughter, Gilda: that love is the essential ambivalence in
his character. The misshapen jester keeps just one part of
his evil nature pure: his sensitive and passionate love that
he reserves for his beloved daughter. The power of that love
serves to redeem him and forces us to vacillate in our feelings
about him; on the one hand, he repels us as a man of evil, but
on the other hand, we are gradually drawn to him in sympathy,
empathizing with his very human suffering.

Rigoletto keeps Gilda isolated from the vice of

Mantua. He teaches her only virtue and goodness, and
brings her up in innocence, faith, and chastity. His
greatest fear is that she may fall into evil, because being
evil himself, he knows what it is, and he knows what
suffering it causes. Therefore, Rigoletto’s treasured Gilda
is secluded behind high walls, hidden, shielded, and
sheltered from the realities of the wicked world
surrounding her. She has been commanded never to leave
the house except to go to church under the protection
of Giovanna, her nurse. Gilda, the light of Rigoletto’s
life, has become his bird in a cage, an overprotection
that can almost be interpreted as an incestuous perversion
of a father-daughter relationship in the disguise of pure
paternal love.

On the surface, Gilda is a naïve, simpleminded,

and angelic innocent, but her romantic fantasies, her
unconscious erotic desires and yearnings, all come to
life in the ecstasy of her first love. Gilda becomes
overwhelmed - passion overcomes reason - when she
meets her first suitor – the Duke in disguise – a man she
accepts at face value without question.

In a certain sense, as the plot progresses, sweet

Gilda is not all that sugary, nor is she exactly snow-
white in her purity, certainly not a sainted, innocent
maiden. Gilda can be seen as nothing more or less than
a mutinous – if not rebellious – child who defies parental
authority. Gilda not only falls in love with the
“anonymous” Duke, a man she does not know, but
readily consents to sin with him in the sense of her
consensual sexual surrender, what Rigoletto will interpret
as the Duke’s rape of his daughter.

From the very beginning of this story, Gilda is a

disobedient daughter: she lies to her father in Act I when
she fails to respond to his interrogation and reveal to her
father that she is being followed home from church by a
stranger; she will further disobey her father in the final act
by returning to the scene of her lover’s treachery and watch
with broken-hearted incredulity as the libertine Duke tries to
seduce Sparafucile’s gypsy sister and accomplice,
Maddelena.

Rigoletto Page 24

The supreme irony of this father-daughter relationship

is that Gilda has even been shielded from Rigoletto himself:
she has no knowledge of who her father really is, or what he
does. Therefore, perhaps the most pathetic moment of the
opera occurs in Act II when the freshly ravished Gilda sees
her father in his court jester costume for the first time; it is
indeed a tragic moment of shame for both father and daughter.

I

t is Monterone’s curse that falls not only on

Rigoletto in his role as the mocking, cynical court

jester, but also strikes Rigoletto as a father. Rigoletto
becomes, just like Monterone, the tragic father who
likewise loses his treasured daughter to the evil of the
court and the outside world. In the irony of this story,
the same Duke whom Rigoletto urged on to
indiscriminate libertine escapades, ravishes his own
daughter, striking down the jester in his role as father in
exactly the same manner as Monterone.

Rigoletto challenges defeat with denial. He is

unable to face the bitter truth that the Duke ravished
his own daughter, and certainly is unable to believe that
she willingly consented to be bedded by the Duke.
Rigoletto is unable to believe that the evil in the world
has invaded his life, or that the altar that he has built for
his daughter has fallen and has become overturned.

Rigoletto can only vindicate himself by exacting

justice through personal revenge on the Duke. Revenge
is the failure of reason; it is when savagery overcomes
the savage; it is when hatred is recycled; it is when the
order inherent in morality becomes chaos. Rigoletto’s
words of justification: Egli é delitto, punizion son io,
“He is crime, I am punishment.” – revenge reasoned as
“an eye for an eye” rather than “turn the other cheek.”

In the end, the poignant tragedy of this story

unfolds when this vanquished father finds himself alone
with the corpse of his beloved daughter, when revenge
has been foiled, and when the jester again remembers
Monterone’s haunting and portentous curse.

In that final scene, Verdi’s music soars upwards,

taking us to heaven with Gilda. Screams and
melodramatic passion are superfluous when we witness
the beloved daughter dying in her father’s arms, a cathartic,
passionate moment of suffering that honestly portrays that
perennial father-daughter tension so prevalent in Verdi.
Hugo ended his drama with Triboulet’s pathetic screams
expressing his final anguish: “I’ve killed my daughter.” In
Verdi, Rigoletto’s final anguish is: Ah! La maledizione, “Ah!
The curse.” Rigoletto blames the curse and not his own
actions as the cause of his own tragedy, his personal disaster
and catastrophe revealed in the fury and frustration of his
final outburst that expresses his ultimate impotence and the
failure of his will.

Rigoletto Page 25

The Duke is that quintessential operatic cad so familiar

to opera-lovers in the roles of Don Giovanni, Pinkerton, or
Baron Ochs. He is unquestionably a vicious libertine, a man
with a devil-may-care attitude, and a skirt-chaser who lives
for conquest. His signature mottoes are expressed in his two
arias: Quest o quella per me pari sono, “This woman or that
woman, they’re all the same,” or La Donna è mobile, “Woman
is fickle.”

The Duke, like Rigoletto, is also an ambivalent

character. In Act II, the Duke expresses apparent
heartfelt tenderness as he laments his presumed loss of
Gilda, a longing certainly inconsistent with the crudeness
of his historical behavior. In that short, transitory
moment of ambivalent sentiment and compassion, the
repugnant rake gives away to sentimentality for a
moment, exhibiting profound feeling, however fleeting
or momentary his sincerity may be when he praises the
one person in the world who had inspired him with a
lasting love and the fulfillment of his desire: Gilda.

A

fter Verdi’s “middle period” was launched

in 1851 with Rigoletto, his quest for more intense

human passion on the lyric theater stage continued into
his next opera, Il Trovatore. In this opera, his central
character became the swarthy and ominous gypsy
mother, Azucena, a character who dominates the opera
story as she savagely recounts the vivid horror of how
her mother was brutally led to execution.

For Verdi’s 19

th

century audiences, archetypal,

beautiful heroines and handsome heroes were the only
acceptable characters to be seen onstage: villains could
be ugly, but could only be secondary figures.
Nevertheless, with Rigoletto and Azucena, Verdi
introduced exciting wicked people with tragic souls:
shocking and repulsive figures. Verdi proved that in
making these underdogs of society major protagonists,
he was willing to go quite far in his search for the bizarre.
In certain respects, these characters with bloodthirsty
passions, represented the prelude to realism in opera: the
verismo that would overcome the genre toward the end of
the 19

th

century.

To the deeply understanding Verdi, common man

suffers the need for revenge as genuinely as kings, gods,
and heroes. Verdi introduced suffering humanity to the
opera stage: Rigoletto, a hunchback, a mocked and
cynical character and Azucena, a hideously ugly and
reviled gypsy. For both characters, the mainsprings of
their actions is revenge which leads to a tragic irony:
Rigoletto’s decisions bring about the death of his own
daughter, killed by the assassin he hired to murder the Duke;
Azucena causes the death of her adored surrogate son

Rigoletto Page 26

Manrico, first by admitting under torture that she is his
mother, and second, by hiding from her arch-enemy, di Luna,
the fact that he and Manrico are actually brothers, an
admission that could have saved Manrico.

Rigoletto and Azucena are thus the male and

female faces of revenge that become defeated: a revenge
that ultimately brings about fatal injustice and tragedy.
Both operas, Rigoletto and Il Trovatore, are therefore
masterpieces of dramatic irony. The final horror for
both Rigoletto and Azucena is that these protagonists
believe they are striking a blow for justice. Rigoletto’s
final justification is Egli è delitto, punizion so io, “He is
crime, I am punishment.” Azucena repeats her mother’s
plea Mi vendica, “Avenge me.” However, in the end,
both fail and witness their children lying dead, the only
difference between them is that Rigoletto may live on
in agony, while Azucena will surely die at the stake as
did her mother.

I

n Rigoletto, Verdi introduced a treasure chest

of glorious music. The opera explodes with melodically

charged gusts of powerful and romantic passion. This
score brought a vitality to the operatic stage that had
never been heard before. Verdi’s musical language now
spoke with a new momentum and energy; his music now
had an intensity that was brimming over with violent
passions, a dark sinisterism, superstition, self pity, raging
emotion, and even murderous glee.

The opera’s ambience is saturated with a dark and

contrasting brilliance of spirit: those biting, ominous
declamatory phrases as Rigoletto explodes in fear of
Monterone’s curse – La maledizione, or Gilda’s
tenderness in Caro nome, delivered in virtuoso coloratura,
and of course, the Quartet, a universally acknowledged
marvel in which the diverse conflicts of the characters
are exposed to the foreground in a brilliant, coherent
musical unity.

Rigoletto also introduced a more perfect balance

between lyrical and dramatic elements. The score structure
is more integrated and fused to a more elevated level between
text and music than he had ever achieved before. As a result,
all of its musical themes are unified, well proportioned,
precisely arranged, and organically related to the whole: its
sharp and contrasting characterizations and super-charged
emotions overwhelm each scene and swiftly speed the opera
from one breathtaking climax to another.

With Rigoletto, Verdi developed and progressed

beyond the patterns established by his predecessors. Even
though the music score contains separate numbers, in
many instances, his orchestra is not just the traditional

Rigoletto Page 27

accompaniment, but an integral part of the drama. In addition,
Rigoletto contains many beautiful melodic inventions that
link recitative to aria in that no-man’s land or barrier between
the end of an aria, and the beginning of another set-piece.

Rigoletto provides a vocally charismatic tenor role,

but it is the title role, Rigoletto, that remains the greatest part
ever written for a high baritone, requiring every emotional
stop of which the voice is capable.

A

t the time of Rigoletto, Wagner’s theories

of the Gesamtkunstwerk, the ideal of the total

artwork and his conception of the music of the future
started to infest the European opera world; its particular
emphasis, that to create true music drama, there must
be a synthesis and fusion of text and music. Wagner’s
theories eventually transformed and revolutionized 19

th

century opera, but Verdi’s Rigoletto, with its bel canto,
its set-pieces, and its “hit-parade” song style, a certain
degree of accompaniments still built on dance-tune
rhythmic structure, certainly represent the antithesis
of Wagnerism. Nevertheless, Rigoletto is not the music
of the past, certainly not that intolerable kind of
Italianism in lyric drama that the Wagnerians considered
devilish: the operas of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and
of course, Verdi.

Rigoletto is a valuable reminder that in spite of

new ideas and transformations, in its widest sense, the
lyric theater does not have to conform to those theories
of perfect music drama in order for an opera to become
and remain a coherent masterpiece. Rigoletto’s musical
lushness and its dramatic passions remain engraved for
eternity. Its musical legacy passes into the world’s mind
just as familiar sentences from literature become catch-
phrases and proverbs. In essence, new currents and trends
arise and swirl up in opera, purer theories take shape,
but Rigoletto holds the stage firmly.

So, in spite of Wagnerisms and the eternal controversy

between the Italian conception of its own operatic music of
the future, the 150 year old Rigoletto goes on and on in
perennial favor. A part of the greatness of Rigoletto lies in
the fact that it indeed reverently and piously follows the
great Italian traditions: a work saturated with beautiful melody
in which the voice and melody reign supreme; an Italian
opera with vivid beauty and spontaneous power; an opera
with gems that seem ageless and continue to remain bright -
the Duke’s Questa o quella and La donna è mobile; Gilda’s
Caro nome and confessional Tutte le feste, Rigoletto’s Pari
siamo and Cortigiani, the Si vendetta duet, and, of course,
the Quartet.

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V

erdi himself described Rigoletto as

revolutionary, if not a landmark in his career: “the

best subject as regards theatrical effect that I’ve ever
set to music. It has powerful situations, variety,
excitement, pathos; all the vicissitudes arise from the
frivolous, rakish personality of the Duke. Hence,
Rigoletto’s fear, Gilda’s passions….”

Although 13 operas would follow, Rigoletto would

always remain Verdi’s favorite work throughout his entire
career. The reason may be that Rigoletto is saturated and
integrated with a strong dramatic and lyric beauty: poignant
expressions of emotion and pathos, despair, romantic
agonies, passions of love, and, of course, that tempestuous
fury that churns the opera: revenge.

Rigoletto is one of Verdi’s supreme lyrical

masterpieces: a late flowering of the Italian romantic
tradition. Verdi would go forward into his “middle period”
to create some of the most enduring works of the operatic
canon. Starting with Rigoletto, Verdi began to compose
in a totally new spirit with bolder subjects containing
greater dramatic and psychological depth.

Nevertheless, his Rigoletto represents, in effect,

the sum and substance of Italian opera, and, as such,
survives as one of opera’s supreme masterpieces.

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