Metropolitan Opera broadcasts continue on Classical 90.5 at 11:00 a.m. this Saturday, December 12, with a performance of Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, with a libretto in Italian by Francesco Maria Piave, after Victor Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse. The performance will run approximately three hours and twenty minutes.
It’s every parent’s nightmare. The child you adore falls victim to an alluring predator who isn't what he claims to be. Verdi's powerful tragedy explores the dark side within us all through one of his most compelling characters, the court jester whose rage inspires coldblooded revenge...and one of the most chilling final scenes in all of opera. A dramatic journey of undeniable force, Rigoletto was immensely popular from its premiere and remains fresh and powerful to this day. The story is that of an outsider who struggles to balance the dueling elements of beauty and evil that exist in his life.
Written during the most fertile period of Verdi’s artistic life, the opera resonates with a universality that is frequently called Shakespearean. In adapting Hugo's play, Verdi and Piave fought with the Italian censors and eventually settled on moving the story to the non-royal Renaissance court of Mantua, while holding firm on the core issues of the drama. In designer Michael Mayer’s production for the Met, the action unfolds in a Las Vegas casino in 1960, a time and place with surprising parallels to the decadent world of the original setting. Roberto Abbado conducts.
THE CAST
Gilda: Nadine Sierra
Maddalena: Nancy Fabiola Herrera
Duke of Mantua: Piotr Beczala
Rigoletto: Željko Lučić
Sparafucile: Dimitry Ivashchenko
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