Two years after the 1851 premiere of Rigoletto at La Fenice in Venice, Verdi summarized his opera in words which seem to pertain to almost every production of the opera:
As far as dramatic effectiveness is concerned, it seems to me that the best material I have yet put to music (I’m not speaking of literary or poetic worth) is Rigoletto. It has the most powerful dramatic situations, it has variety, vitality, pathos; all the dramatic developments result from the frivolous, licentious character of the Duke. Hence Rigoletto’s fears, Gilda’s passion, etc., which give rise to the many dramatic situations, including the scene of the quartet which, so far as effect is concerned, will always be one of the finest our theaters can boast.
The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the 1832 play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo. However, Piave’s depiction of a venal, cynical, womanizing king (Francis I of France) was considered unacceptably scandalous. The play had been banned in France following its premiere nearly twenty years earlier. Now it was to come before the Austrian Board of Censors ( Austria then directly controlled much of Northern Italy.) Historian Edward Dent believes “it is quite possible that Verdi chose it for this very reason, much as Mozart chose Le Mariage de Figaro, because it was a play that had been forbidden, ostensibly on moral grounds.”[i]
Despite their best efforts, including frantic correspondence with La Fenice, the Austrian censor De Gorzkowski emphatically denied consent to the production of “La Maledizione”. In a December 1850 letter, he called the opera “a repugnant [example of] immorality and obscene triviality.” However, by January 1851 the parties had settled on a compromise
Carlo Marazai, the representative of the theater, conveyed, the conditions:
“The colours and the original characters that you want will be kept….The character substituted for Fransisco [the King] can be a libertine and absolute ruler of his state. The buffoon can be deformed, as you want. There will be no problem about the sack, and the only reservation is that we will have to treat the kidnapping of the buffoon’s daughter in a way that conforms to the demands for decency on stage.”[ii]
The action of the opera would be moved, and some of the characters would be renamed. In the new version, the Duke would preside over Mantua and belong to the safe Gonzaga family. (The House of Gonzaga had long been extinct by the mid-19th century, and the Dukedom of Mantua no longer existed.) The scene in which the Duke retired to Gilda’s bedroom would be deleted, and his visit to the inn would no longer be intentional, but the result of a trick.
By 14 January, the opera’s definitive title had become Rigoletto. The one demand which was non-negotiable was the change of the title of the opera from The Curse, “La Maledizione”.
The opera premiered in a sold-out La Fenice, as the first part of a double bill with a ballet. Gaetano Mares conducted, and the sets were designed and executed by Giuseppe Bertoja and Francesco Bagnara. The opening night was a complete triumph, especially the scena drammatica and the Duke’s “La donna è mobile“, which was sung in the streets the next morning (Verdi had maximised the aria’s impact by only revealing it to the cast and orchestra a few hours before the premiere, and forbidding them to sing, whistle or even think of the melody outside of the theatre) Many years later, Giulia Cora Varesi, the daughter of Felice Varesi (the original Rigoletto), described her father’s performance at the premiere. Varesi was very uncomfortable with the false hump he had to wear; he was so uncertain that, even though he was quite an experienced singer, he had a panic attack when it was his turn to enter the stage. Verdi immediately realised he was paralysed and roughly pushed him on the stage, so he appeared with a clumsy tumble. The audience, thinking it was an intentional gag, was very amused.
Rigoletto was a great box-office success for La Fenice and Verdi’s first major Italian triumph since the 1847 premiere of Macbeth in Florence. It initially had a run of 13 performances and was revived in Venice the following year, and again in 1854. Despite a rather disastrous production in Bergamo shortly after its initial run at La Fenice, the opera soon entered the repertory of Italian theatres. By 1852, it had premiered in all the major cities of Italy, although sometimes under different titles due to the vagaries of censorship From 1852, it also began to be performed in major cities worldwide, reaching as far afield as Alexandria and Constantinople in 1854 and both Montevideo and Havana in 1855. The British premiere took place on 14 May 1853 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London with Giovanni Matteo Mario as the Duke and Giorgio Ronconi as Rigoletto. In the US, the opera was first seen on 19 February 1855 at New York’s Academy of Music in a performance led by the Max Maretzek Italian Opera Company.
The plot is straight-forward. While at a party at his palace, the Duke of Mantua expresses his desire to meet a young woman he has recently seen at church, but soon afterward he sets his romantic sights on seducing the Countess Ceprano. As the Duke and the Countess leave together, her husband is mocked and humiliated by the court jestter, Rigoletto ( Ceprano is interested to learn from the nobleman Marullo that Rigoletto keeps a woman in his home. The elderly nobleman Count Monterone interrupts the party to defend the honor of his daughter, who has been ravished by the Duke. Rigoletto mocks Monterone’s anger, and the enraged father responds by cursing the Duke and his jester, Rigoletto.
Outside the palace later that night, the assassin Sparafucile confronts Rigoletto. Rigoletto sends him away, but compares his own biting tongue to an assassin’s sword. When he arrives home, he is greeted by his daughter Gilda, whom he has kept secluded there since the death of her mother. Rigoletto leaves Gilda in the care of her maid, Giovanna. Soon afterwards, the Duke, disguised as a student, sneaks into the house and tells Gilda that he loves her. Gilda, who has noticed the disguised Duke following her home from church, returns his affections, and they bid each other farewell. Outside, Ceprano and a group of the Duke’s courtiers are gathering to abduct Gilda — whom they believe to be Rigoletto’s mistress — in order to gain revenge on the jester. The courtiers blindfold Rigoletto and fool him into letting them into his own house. They depart with Gilda. Rigoletto hears her cries and removes the blindfold, but he is too late to save her, and he is left alone to remember Monterone’s curse.
Having discovered that Gilda is missing, the Duke laments losing her. However, he soon learns that she was abducted his own courtiers, and he excitedly leaves to see her. Rigoletto enters, searching for Gilda, but he is turned away by the unconcerned courtiers. Gilda enters and tearfully tells her father about her flirtation with the duke and her abduction. As Rigoletto consoles his daughter, he watches as Monterone is led towards his prison cell. Rigoletto swears to Monterone that the Duke’s crimes against both of their daughters will be avenged.
Rigoletto brings Gilda to the home of the assassin Sparafucile, whom he has hired to kill the Duke. Gilda is forced to watch from the outside as the Duke, no longer disguised as her lover, seduces Maddalena, the assassin’s sister. After sending Gilda away, Rigoletto finalizes his arrangements with Sparafucile; he will return at midnight to accept the body and dispose of it. Against her father’s wishes, Gilda returns and listens as Maddalena begs her brother not to kill the Duke. Sparafucile initially refuses, but relents and tells his sister that he will kill whoever arrives at the inn before Rigoletto returns. Gilda decides to allow herself be killed in place of her lover, knocks on the door, and is stabbed by Sparafucile.
Rigoletto returns at midnight, and is presented with a body in a sack. As he leaves, he hears the voice of the Duke singing in the distance. He opens the bag to find the dying body of his daughter. She dies in the arms of her father, who cries that Monterone’s curse has been fulfilled.
The current Metropolitan Opera Company production is directed by Bartlett Sher, a director whose work generally pleases, but who can occasionally, make disastrous decisions in planning or executing his production. Conrad L. Osborne has enumerated the problems. The basic problem involves not giving the “curse” its full due.
The curse is issued by an aggrieved Count ( de Saint-Vallier in Hugo, Monterone for Verdi) to a rapist monarch (Francis 1 in Hugo, The Duke of Mantua in Verdi)) and his poison-mouthed jester (Triboulet in Hugo and Rigoletto in Verdi)- “Ah, siate entrambi voi maledetti!” (“You are both cursed!). This curse, these words, constitute the architectonic element of both Verdi’s opera and Hugo’s Play Le Roi S’amuse. In dramaturgical terms, it is the “inciting incident”, the action which upsets the main character’s status quo, and drives the action to the climax.
For a curse to have effect it must be issued at a time when hostile words were believed to have the same lethal effect as physical actions, and in a culture believing in the deadly power of curses. If the characters in such a place and time believe in the power of the curse, the audience will vicariously come to believe in that power. Such a time and culture was France at the beginning of the 16th century, the situation in Hugo’s play, and Mantua in the 14th century, the time of Verdi’s opera.
Weimar Germany had no such belief in curses.
Consequently, director Sher’s decision to set the action in that culture at that specific time, robbed the play of its power, since the actor-singers were deprived of a context to motivate their passions. In Weimar the Duke’s shrugging off of the curse seems normal, while Rigoletto’s terror seems odd and overdone. In Francis 1’s court and in the Mantua of the Gonzaga family the reverse would be true. Shrugging off a curse would be truly reckless behavior, recoiling in despair from a curse would be the normal expected reaction.
In Bartlett Sher’s production, Rigoletto and Verdi’s obsession with the curse seem abnormal.Verdi even supplies “curse music” each time Rigoletto tries to understand what is happening to him: First, when the curtain falls at the end of Act 1 scene 1 when the curse is invoked. Second, at the end of Act 1 scene 2 after Rigoletto realizes Gilda has been attacked. And finally, at the end of the opera, when Gilda’s death is certain and the curse’s power has been confirmed.
So no matter how stunningly beautiful Michael Yeargan’s settings, or Catherine Zuber’s costumes. or the music conjured by conductor Daniele Rustioni, and the production is gorgeous. The acting and singing, all first rate. Quinn Kelsey’s powerful and expressive voice leads him to reveal the conflicts of Rigoletto’ s personality and the strange relationship with his daughter Gilda, whom he has known for only three months. Rosa Feola’s delicate voice suggests the youthful innocence of Gilda, while Piotr Beczala’s hold on the Duke remains secure, regardless of the production details.
The Bartlett Sher’s Rigoletto is a fancy luxury liner heading the wrong way.
i Edward Dent. Opera. Penguin Books, 1940. p. 87.
ii Mary Jane Phillips-Matz. Verdi. A Biography. Oxford University Press, 1993. p. 273.
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