path: root/rigoletto.md

# Rigoletto ## Verdi ## Met Opera, 2024 October 4

## Production Staging is a very large rectangular prism with 2 long sides
and 2 short sides, taking up essentially the entire stage, though actors
can move in front of it off the mechanism. The entire thing rotates in
either direction and can rotate rather quickly.

Despite a setting in 1930s Weimar Germany the architecture did not seem
particularly Bauhaus. The Duke's palace was ornately/somewhat
neoclassically decorated with flourishes, but there is an
artificiality/cheapness not present in Rigoletto's home / the inn.

Buildings in the city were heavy masses of brickwork/stone, and Rigoletto's
home was quite humble.

Later Rigoletto's home was swapped out for the assassin's inn, presumably
just the same structure but redecorated.

Sense of places being "different sides of the same coin" and parallels
between the Duke's palace and Rigoletto and Sparafucile. Mirrors their
depravity: the duke and Rigoletto both mock Ceprano at the beginning, and
assassin breaks his word and kills Gilda instead.

Mirroring is echoed by the scene with Rigoletto commenting on how being a
jester is similar to being an assassin - one cuts with words, other with a
knife.

Centrally, Rigoletto mocks courtiers for the Duke seducing their
wives/daughters, and then the exact same thing happens to him. Apparently
other productions make him more of a "tragic dad" but this one definitely
emphasizes his cruelty and hypocrisy. Comitragedy.

The set is often displayed at angles with two sides facing audience at
once, and often rotates quickly during the scenes as characters move in and
on it from the stage. Adds to the continuity of settings. Sometimes the set
is rotating while characters on stage struggle to keep up, almost like
time/space conspiring to bring about the inevitable.

Heavy walls add weight to the scenes, especially the kidnapping one. A few
scenes (incl. final scene) where it's just Rigoletto in a small corner
against a massive grey backdrop, underscoring his powerlessness.

In the storm/murder scene the inn is bathed in red light but it doesn't
feel gaudy or affected like the Met's Lucia di lammermoor. Lightning is
done very well, not over the top. (It seems technically difficult to stage
something like lightning.) Maybe there is a feeling that the tension is
gradually increasing throughout so the dramatic staging is warranted,
whereas in other operas it seems a bit forced.

In this scene Gilda acts as a silent ghost, coming into the inn without
using the door, handing the knife to Sparafucile in ghost-form, and then
leaving and coming back in in human-form. Incredibly eery, movements
choreographed like a dance, especially with the orchestra, red light, rain,
and lightning. When she comes back in instead of Sparafucile stabbing her
she grabs his hand and stabs herself with his knife, underscoring her
sacrifice. At least in the end (if in a twisted way) she gains a sort of
agency lacked heretofore, but there is a dark magical quality associated
with that.

Gilda changing clothes to a boy does not protect her; just exchanges her
vulnerability from a feminine vulnerability (preyed upon by Duke's
seduction) to a masculine vulnerability (stabbed to death).

## Sound Rigoletto excellent baritone, arias quite moving. Gilda soprano as
well. Usually clowns are tenor, so the darker themes are signalled
immediately.

Rigoletto/Gilda baritone/soprano duets incredible.

Duke felt flat and affected by comparison; maybe on purpose. The Duke's
jaunty arias (eg La donna e mobile) incur a sinister sense as the opera
goes on, especially as the La donna e mobile motif is repeated (briefly) in
later scenes at Sparafucile's inn. Duke's tenor also seems to have less
weight compared to Rigoletto. The motif becomes almost haunting, and
appropriately Gilda acts as almost a ghost right before her murder.

Monterone, though few lines was also an excellent baritone (and acting),
curse feels like the natural culmination of years of Rigoletto's mocking,
and even deserved. Commanding presence and voice even in his frailty.

## Costuming Rigoletto's clown makeup quite evident even at a distance,
appropriate for beginning where he's mocking Ceprano but in sharp contrast
to the second scene in the palace looking for Gilda. Truly feels like
"monstrous" as he predicts.

## Translation The English surtitles are at times quite humorous and even
irreverent, *especially* in dark scenes.  "I want two things - your sister
and a drink"
- the sinisterness of laughter

## Themes ### Laughter and crying Clowns laugh but do not cry. Reminds one
of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose antagonist's central thesis "monks
should not laugh."

Rigoletto after meeting Sparafucile) Go, go, go, go.  We are two of a kind:
my weapon is my tongue, his is a dagger; I am a man of laughter, he strikes
the fatal blow!  The old man cursed me...  O mankind! O nature!It was you
who made me evil and corrupt!  I rage at my monstrous form, my cap and
bells!To be permitted nothing but to laugh!I’m denied that common human
right, to weep.

Reminiscent of more serious clowns like Shakespeare's Touchstone - what
happens when the trickster is himself tricked?

An interpretation could be - Rigoletto's paradigm at court is through the
lens of a fool, and everything is taken as a joke by definition. Thus his
inability to weep for Ceprano leads directly to the curse and his own
weeping.

### The curse There is a preoccupation with the curse as the main
instigator of all the bad things, rather than (e.g.) the courtiers for
kidnapping, or Gilda making the choice to come back. Even the final scene
with Gilda dying references the curse, and apparently the original title of
the opera was The Curse.

Adds to the sense of inevitability, but also, possibly points to
Rigoletto's awareness of his guilt, as the curse was directly due to his
mocking Monterone.

### La donna e mobile There is a theme of women being easily tricked,
Ceprano's wife, Gilda, Gilda's maid, even Maddalena, who as a "seductress"
type character presumably is able to trick men, but everyone incl. her
immediately falls for the Duke's relatively vacuous proclamations of love.

The La donna e mobile motif reinforces this theme even when not directly
part of the plot, and the easily-fooled women trope is recalled in a more
sinister light. Gilda even says "this is all because I didn't listen to you
[Rigoletto]". Seems unsurprising for an opera for its time, but I didn't
notice any production choices challenging this or offering more nuance
here.

### No heroes Rigoletto portrayed unsympathetically, though makes his grief
even more poetic (and performance impressive as audience is genuinely
moved). Even a side character like the maid allows Duke to infiltrate,
accepts a bribe, and ends up with Gilda getting kidnapped.

There is Gilda who seems to be the only morally OK character, but even she
willingly/irrationally sacrifices herself for the duke who she knows does
not love her.

Sparafucile rejects Maddalena's proposal to kill Rigoletto saying that he
honors his contracts and does not betray clients. But he readily agrees to
killing some random person instead of the Duke, which seems to also be
breaking his contract (in addition to not making much sense, wouldn't
Rigoletto realize the next day the target was not killed? unless
Sparafucile is planning on skipping town, but for 20 crowns? unclear how
much this is exactly).