Verdi: Rigoletto

Overview

The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely counterpoised: the plotting courtiers against the plotting Sparafucile and Maddalena (also ambiguously tender-hearted). When Rigoletto says "Pari siamo", he could be expressing the motto of the whole work: the beautiful and the ugly can be equally good, equally evil.

Directed by John Dexter, Brian Large

Top cast

Louis Quilico

Rigoletto

Luciano Pavarotti

Il Duca di Mantua

Christiane Eda-Pierre

Gilda

A

Ara Berberian

Sparafucile

Isola Jones

Maddalena

J

John Darrenkamp

Marullo

B

Batyah Godfrey

Giovanna

B

Betsy Norden

Countess Ceprano

N

Norman Andersson

Count Ceprano

C

Charles Anthony

Borsa

R

Richard J. Clark

Monterone

James Levine

Self - Conductor

N

Nadyne Brewer

A page

P

Paul de Paola

Chief guard

MET Orchestra

Details