Teatro Real

Rigoletto

Music by

G. Verdi

Bayerische Staatsoper

München, DE

2015

Tuesday
November
17
19:00

Cast

Duke of Mantua  Yosep Kang
Rigoletto  Franco Vassallo
Gilda  Lisette Oropesa
Sparafucile  Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Count Monterone  Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Maddalena  Alisa Kolosova
Giovanna  Alisa Kolosova
Marullo  Andrea Borghini
Borsa  Dean Power
Count Ceprano  Christian Rieger
Countess Ceprano  Leela Subramaniam
Usher  Igor Tsarkov
Page  Deniz Uzun
Conductor

Daniele Rustioni

Director

Árpád Schilling

Set Designer

Márton Ágh

Lighting

Christian Kass

Director

Miron Hakenbeck

Chorusmaster

Stellario Fagone

About

The first performance of the first opera in Verdi's legendary "trilogia popolare" at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice was preceded by a tricky battle with the censor. After all, the play by Victor Hugo on which it was based, about the cynical hedonism of an aristocrat, had been a hot potato throughout Europe since 1832, when it was banned immediately after its first performance in Paris. Verdi was interested less in criticism of the ruling classes and more in the tragedy of the court jester whose existence is devastated.

The deformed entertainer in a world of men who consume women pulls out all the stops in his sarcasm and yet believes that he will remain unharmed by his public actions if he merely separates them cleanly from his private happiness. But when his daughter, imprisoned in a remote location for her own protection, follows her own longing, she becomes the victim of his double existence. A lonely, pitiable clown? "An amoral petty bourgeois man", thinks Arpad Schilling, "who dreams of innocence. A husband mourning for his wife and filled with a thirst for revenge. A great actor to whom success is more important than his own daughter. The fool of a noble lord who has been cheated by his own happiness. Verdi can do what Shakespeare does: He can tell a story in such a way as to make us shudder."

Related Articles

Reviews

MÜNCHEN/ Bayerische Staatsoper: RIGOLETTO

Für die erkrankte Patricia Petibon übernahm dankenswerterweise kurzfristig Lisette Oropesa die Rolle der Gilda, die sie mit ihrem vollen, leuchtenden, farbenreichen Sopran sehr schön darbot.

—  Martina Bogner  •  Online Merker

Performance History

Lisette has given 68 performances as Gilda.