Operas by Giuseppe Verdi

Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio (1839) Un giorno di regno (1840) Nabucco (1842) I Lombardi alla prima crociata (1843) Ernani (1844) I due Foscari (1844) Giovanna d'Arco (1845) Alzira (1845) Attila (1846) Macbeth (1847) I masnadieri (1847) Jrusalem (1847) Il corsaro (1848) La battaglia di Legnano (1849) Luisa Miller (1849) Stiffelio (1850) Rigoletto (1851) Il trovatore (1853) La traviata (1853) Les vpres siciliennes (1855) Simon Boccanegra (1857) Aroldo (1857) Un ballo in maschera (1859) La forza del destino (1862) Don Carlos (1867) Aida (1871) Otello (1887) Falstaff (1893)

For the children's film, see Rigoletto (film)

For the film based on the original opera, see Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto Story

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851. It is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career.

As a staple of the standard operatic repertoire, it appears as number nine on Opera America's list of the 20 most-performed operas in North America^[1].

History of composition

Verdi was commissioned to write a new opera by the theatre La Fenice, Venice in 1850, when he was already a well known composer with a certain freedom of choosing the works he would prefer. He then asked Piave (with whom he had already made Ernani, I due Foscari, Macbeth, Il Corsaro and Stiffelio) to examine the play Kean by Alexandre Dumas, père, but he felt he needed a more energetic subject to work on.

Verdi soon stumbled upon Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse. He later explained that "It contains extremely powerful positions ... The subject is great, immense, and has a character that is one of the most important creations of the theatre of all countries and all Ages".

It was a highly controversial subject, indeed, and Hugo himself had already had trouble with censorship in France, which had banned production of his play after its first performance nearly twenty years earlier (and would continue to ban it for another thirty years). As Austria at that time directly controlled much of Northern Italy, it came before the Austrian Board of Censors.

From the beginning Verdi was aware of the risks, as was Piave. A letter has been found in which Verdi writes to Piave: "Use four legs, run through the town and find me an influential person who can obtain the permission for making Le Roi s'amuse." Correspondence between a prudent Piave and an already committed Verdi followed, and the two remained at risk and underestimated the power and the intentions of Austrians. Even the friendly Guglielmo Brenna, secretary of La Fenice who had promised them that they would not have problems with the censors, was in error.

At the beginning of the summer of 1850, some rumors started to spread that Austrian censorship was going to forbid the production. They considered the Hugo work to verge on lese majeste, and would never permit such a scandalous work to be performed in Venice.

In August, Verdi and Piave prudently retired to Busseto, Verdi's hometown, to continue the composition and prepare a defensive scheme. They wrote to the theatre, assuring them that the censor's doubts about the morality of the work were not justified but since very little time was left, very little could be done. The work was secretly called by the composers The Malediction (or The Curse), and this unofficial title was used by Austrian censor De Gorzkowski (who evidently had known of it from spies) to enforce, if needed, the violent letter by which he definitively denied consent to its production.

In order not to waste all their work, Piave tried to revise the libretto and was even able to pull from it another opera Il Duca di Vendome, in which the sovereign was substituted with a duke and both the hunchback and the curse disappeared. Verdi was completely against this proposed solution and preferred instead to have direct negotiations with censors, arguing over each and every point of the work.

At this point Brenna, La Fenice's secretary, showed the Austrians some letters and articles depicting the bad character but the great value of the artist, helping to mediate the dispute. In the end the parties were able to agree that the action of the opera had to be moved from the royal court of France to a duchy of France or Italy, as well as a renaming of the characters. The scene in which the sovereign retires in the bedroom of Gilda would be deleted and the visit of the Duke to the Taverna was not intentional anymore, but provoked by a trick. The hunchback (originally Triboulet) became Rigoletto (from French rigolo = funny). The name of the work too was changed.

For the premiere, Verdi had Felice Varesi as Rigoletto, the young tenor Raffaele Mirate as the Duke, and Teresina Brambilla as Gilda (though Verdi would have preferred Teresa De Giuli Borsi). Teresina Brambilla was a well-known soprano coming from a family of singers and musicians; one of her nieces, Teresa Brambilla, was the wife of Amilcare Ponchielli.

The opening was a complete triumph, and the Duke's cynical aria, "La donna è mobile", was sung in the streets the next morning.

Due to the high risk of unauthorised copying, Verdi had demanded the maximum secrecy from all his singers and musicians. Mirate had use of his score only a few evenings before the premiere and was forced to swear he wouldn't sing or even whistle the tune of "La donna è mobile".

Giulia Cori, the daughter of Varesi, many years later described her father's performance at the premiere. Her father, the original Rigoletto, was really 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 a gag, was very amused.

Roles

Role	Voice type	Premiere Cast, March 11, 1851[2] (Conductor: - )
Rigoletto, the Duke's jester	baritone	Felice Varesi
Gilda, his daughter	soprano	Teresa Brambilla
Duke of Mantua	tenor	Raffaelle Mirate
Sparafucile, an assassin	bass	Paolo Damini
Maddalena, his sister	contralto	Annetta Casaloni
Giovanna, Gilda's Nurse	mezzo-soprano	Laura Saini
Count Ceprano	bass	Andrea Bellini
Countess Ceprano, his wife	mezzo-soprano	Luigia Morselli
Matteo Borsa, a courtier	tenor	Angelo Zuliani
Count Monterone	baritone	Feliciano Ponz
Marullo	baritone	Francesco De Kunnerth
A Court Usher	bass	Giovanni Rizzi
A Page	mezzo-soprano

Synopsis

Place, Mantua and vicinity.

Time, the Sixteenth century. ^[3]

Act I, Scene 1: A room in the palace.

The Duke has seen an unknown beauty in church and desires to possess her, but he also wishes to seduce the Countess Ceprano. Rigoletto, the Duke's hunchbacked jester, mocks the husbands of the ladies to whom the Duke is paying attention, and advises the Duke to get rid of them by prison or death. The noblemen, especially Count Monterone, whose daughter the Duke had dishonoured, resolve to take vengeance on Rigoletto. Monterone curses the Duke and Rigoletto.

Act 1, Scene 2: A street - Half the stage, divided by a wall, is occupied by the courtyard of Rigoletto's house.

Thinking of the curse, the jester approaches his house and is accosted by the assassin Sparafucile, who offers his services. Rigoletto contemplates the similarities between the two of them: Sparafucile uses his sword, Rigoletto both his tongue and wits to fight. The hunchback opens a door in the wall and returns home to his daughter Gilda, whom he is concealing from the prince and the rest of the city. She does not know her father's occupation and, as he has forbidden her to appear in public, she has been nowhere except to church.

When Rigoletto has gone, the Duke appears and overhears Gilda confess to her nurse Giovanna that she feels guilty for not having told her father about a student she had met at the church, but that she would love him even more if he were poor. Just as she declares her love, the Duke enters, overjoyed, convincing Gilda of his love, though she resists at first. When she asks for his name, he hesitantly calls himself Gualtier Maldé. Hearing sounds and fearing that her father has returned, Gilda sends the Duke away after they quickly repeat their vows of love to each other.

Later, the hostile noblemen outside the walled garden, believing her to be the jester's mistress, convince Rigoletto to help them abduct the Countess Ceprano. He assists them in their arrangements, but they actually abduct Gilda. Too late, Rigoletto realises that he has been duped and, collapsing, remembers the curse.

Act II: The Duke's Palace

The noblemen inform the Duke that they have captured Rigoletto's mistress and, by their description, he recognises it to be Gilda. Since she is in the palace, he rushes off to see her, declaring that at last, she will know the truth and that he will give up his wealth and position for her, the first person who has inspired him to really love. Perplexed at first by the Duke's strange excitement, the courtiers now make sport with Rigoletto. He tries to find Gilda by pretending to be uncaring, as he fears she may fall into the hands of the Duke. Finally, to general astonishment, he acknowledges that he is seeking his daughtrer. Gilda rushes in, begs her father to send the people away, and acknowledges the shame she feels in finding out his profession. Rigoletto demands vengeance against his master, while Gilda pleads for him.

Act III: A street outside an Inn.

Half the stage shows Sparafucile's house, with two rooms, one above the other, open to the view of the audience. Rigoletto and Gilda, who still loves the prince, arrive outside. Rigoletto shows her that the Duke, half-drunk in despair over losing Gilda, is in the assassin's house but attempting to seduce Sparafucile's sister, Maddalena. (Aria: La donna e mobile, laying out the infidelity and fickle nature of women).

Rigoletto bargains with the assassin, who is ready to murder his guest for money. Rigoletto orders his daughter to put on man's attire in order to prepare to go to Verona, where he plans to follow later. Rigoletto offers the assassin 20 scudi for killing the Duke. As a thunderstorm is approaching, the Duke determines to remain in the house, and Sparafucile assigns to him the ground floor sleeping quarters.

Gilda, who still loves the Duke and despite knowing him to be unfaithful, returns dressed as a man. She overhears Maddalena begging for the Duke's life, so the assassin promise her that, if by midnight another can be found in place of the Duke, he will spare the Duke's life. Gilda resolves to sacrifice herself for the Duke and enters the house. She is immediately mortally wounded and collapses.

When Rigoletto arrives with the money, he receives a corpse wrapped in a sack, and rejoices in his triumph. Weighting it with stones, he is about to cast the sack into the river when he hears the voice of the Duke singing a reprise of his bitter aria. Bewildered, he opens the sack and, to his despair, discovers his mortally-wounded daughter. For a moment, she revives and declares she is glad to die for her beloved. As she takes her final breath, Rigoletto exclaims in horror, "The curse!", which is fulfilled upon both master and servant.

Noted arias

• "Questa o quella" (This woman or that) - The Duke of Mantua in Act I, Scene I
• "Pari siamo!" (We are alike!) - Rigoletto in Act I, Scene II
• "Figlia! Mio padre!" (Daughter! My father!) - Rigoletto & Gilda in Act I, Scene II
• "Gualtier Maldè! ... Caro nome" (Dearest name) - Gilda in Act I, Scene II
• "Ella mi fu rapita!" (She was stolen from me!) - The Duke of Mantua in Act II, Scene I
• Parmi veder le lagrime - The Duke of Mantua in Act II, Scene I
• "Possente amor mi chiama" (Mighty love beckons me) - The Duke of Mantua in Act II, Scene I
• "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata" (Accursed race of courtiers) - Rigoletto in Act II, Scene I
• "Tutte le feste al tempio" (On all the blessed days) - Gilda in Act II, Scene I
• "Sì! Vendetta, tremenda vendetta!" (Yes! Revenge, terrible revenge!) - Rigoletto and Gilda in Act II, Scene I
• "La donna è mobile" (Woman is fickle) - The Duke of Mantua in Act III, Scene 1
• "Un dì, se ben rammentomi ... Bella figlia dell'amore" (Sweet daughter of love) - Duca, Rigoletto, Gilda & Maddalena in Act III, Scene I
• "V'ho ingannato" (Father, I deceived you) - Rigoletto & Gilda in Act III, Scene I

Selected recordings

Year	Cast (Duke of Mantua, Rigoletto, Gilda, Sparafucile, Maddalena)	Conductor, Opera House and Orchestra	Label
1955	Giuseppe di Stefano, Tito Gobbi, Maria Callas, Nicola Zaccaria, Adriana Lazzarini	Tullio Serafin, Teatro alla Scala orchestra and chorus	Audio CD (mono): EMI Cat: 747469
1971	Luciano Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, Joan Sutherland, Martti Talvela, Huguette Tourangeau	Richard Bonynge, London Symphony Orchestra Ambrosian Opera Chorus	Audio CD: London Cat: 414-269-2
1977	Plácido Domingo, Cornell MacNeil, Ileana Cotrubas, Justino Díaz, Isola Jones	James Levine, Metropolitan Opera orchestra and chorus (production by John Dexter)	DVD: Deutsche Grammophon Cat: 00440 073 0930
1982	Luciano Pavarotti, Ingvar Wixell, Edita Gruberova, Ferruccio Furlanetto Victoria Vergara	Riccardo Chailly, Wiener Philharmoniker Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor (film by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle)	DVD: Deutsche Grammophon Cat: 00440 073 4166 DVD: Decca Cat: 071401

Note: "Cat:" is short for catalogue number by the label company; "ASIN" is amazon.com product reference number.

Media

La donna è mobile
Enrico Caruso sings La donna è mobile (1908)
Problems listening to the file? See media help

Notes

1. ^ OPERA America's "The Top 20" list of most-performed operas
2. ^ List of singers taken from Budden, Julian: The Operas of Verdi (Cassell), vol 1, p. 476.
3. ^

The plot description is taken from The Opera Goer's Complete Guide by Leo Melitz, 1921 version, with updated English for clarity.