Rigoletto - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden 11/10/2010

This was the first time I've seen Rigoletto in the theatre, despite having been a fan of the opera for several years (it was, in fact, the opera that changed my mind about the genre - see Disc of the Day #11). I did have a ticket to one of the early performances of this production a few years ago but was ill and couldn't attend. As you might imagine I was pretty excited by 7.25 last night.

The first thing to say is that I love the staging. The fact that the Duke's palace spins round to become Rigoletto's house is wonderfully simple yet illuminating. Like many Verdi operas (Aida is a prime example of this) much of the tension comes from a character placed in a situation that demands two different things of him. Whether this is public figure/private figure (Aida) or father/court member (Rigoletto), the opposing pulls created make the drama. So here we have the palace, all hard, flat lines offset against the broken lines of Rigoletto's home. Simple, wonderful, enlightening.

Then we have the cast. Dimitri Hvorostovsky has the same wonderful quality I hear when I listen to Jessye Norman - that is I always get the sense there's another gear there if it's needed. Singing Rigoletto this in no small miracle.

I must admit that I wasn't bowled over by Wookyung Kim's Duke - I couldn't help feeling there was a bit of...well...welly missing. Howwever, I absolutely loved Patrizia Ciofi as Gilda - on a night where the performance was dedicated to the memory of Joan Sutherland it must have been difficult to sing this role but sing it she did and brilliantly.

Special mention should also go to Raymond Aceto and Daniela Innamorati as Sparafucile and Maddalena, both of whom were excellent.

The cast has a couple of variations over the run:

Conductor

Dan Ettinger
Christopher Willis

Duke of Mantua

Wookyung Kim

Rigoletto

Dmitri Hvorostovsky
Paolo Gavanelli

Gilda

Patrizia Ciofi
Ekaterina Sadovnikova

Sparafucile

Raymond Aceto

Maddalena

Daniela Innamorati

Having waited a while to see Rigoletto I didn't want to wait long to see it again so I'm going again, with a friend who knows nothing about opera, next week. I'm seeing the same cast which is, in part, a shame as I'd like to see the other lot. However, if last night again is what I'm getting then bring it on.

#11 Verdi - Rigoletto (Bruson/Gruberova/Shicoff/Sinopoli)

Verdi - Rigoletto
Rigoletto is the first opera I listened to, and I didn't really expect to like it. Ever since I was a child I hated opera singing or, to be more accurate, I hated big wobbly soprano voices (which is what I thought all opera singing was). I bought a few discs of orchestral excerpts from Wagner operas as a teenager but didn't go in for all the hoyotoho-ing of the full versions.

Skip forward several years to 2000. I started a job at a music publishing company administering royalties - part of my job was processing royalties for Ricordi, one of the biggest opera publishers of all time. I asked my boss if she'd lend me some opera to listen to as I thought I might as well know what I was dealing with and, in simple terms, I fell in love.

I love this recording of the opera. Bruson is a fine Rigoletto and I've always liked what I've heard of Niel Shicoff, who seems to have suffered from being a great tenor at a time when there were 3 much more famous tenors around. Maybe he wasn't quite in the same league but he's not far off.

The best thing about this recording for me though is Edita Gruberova's Gilda. Some people aren't too keen on her voice, saying it lacks warmth. However, we're not dealing with a worldly-wise Violetta here (although I believe her recording of Traviata is also excellent - I haven't heard it). Gilda is young and innocent and the cleanliness of Gruberova's voice is a great fit. Her Caro Nome is simply beautiful.

10 years on and I'm a huge opera fan - who'd have thought.