Rigoletto (Verdi)

Drama in three acts with music by Giuseppe Verdi and libretto in Italian by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the theatre play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo. In this opera, Verdi portrays all the deep-rooted passions characteristic of man’s nature. Until it was premiered on 11 March 1851 at Teatro de La Fenice in Venice, the composer suffered agonies as he saw it clash against the walls of censorship of the Lombardy-Venice state authorities [Austrian Empire], as it deals with topics which were far too thorny in Italian society before unification. After making some changes, which did not distort the character or the colour of the work, it was finally premiered to great success.

Rigoletto is the title of the famous “popular trilogy” by the Busseto maestro. Like the heroes in Il trovatore and La traviata, Rigoletto is a social outcast, a hunchbacked who works as a jester in the corrupt court of Mantua in the late 16^th century, ruled by the beautiful and young Duke of Mantua, a morbid seducer. When his efforts to safeguard the innocence of his daughter Gilda are shattered by the Duke’s lust, the jester will attempt an impossible revenge.