Rigoletto

After the difficulty with censors that Verdi encountered while composing Stiffelio, the easy track for his next work would have been to pick a subject much less controversial. However Verdi turned to Victor Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse which had been banned in Paris after one performance. But by turning the play's King into a duke and moving the action from France to Mantua, the librettist Piave was able to satisfy both the composer and the censors. This tragic tale inspired Verdi like none since Macbeth; the premiere was a triumph and it immediately became a hit around the world. However, local censors often banned the original text, and so the music was occasionally heard set to a substantially changed libretto; in some versions, the unfortunate Gilda was even revived to live happily ever after. Fortunately, though some of them were truly abysmal, none of these temporary changes altered the success of what is still recognized as one of Verdi's finest scores.

Rigoletto provided an important break with earlier operatic convention; only the Duke has the conventional two-part (slow-fast) aria that had been the steadfast building block of scenes for many years (until the 1960s, most opera lovers did not know the second section of this aria ("Possente amor") because it was nearly always omitted from performances). The other two arias for the Duke are more like canzonettas, sounding like something anyone could toss off in a light hearted moment. Gilda's only aria is a dreamy reflection on the young man with whom she has fallen in love; it lacks the expected bravura conclusion. Rigoletto's arias do not follow the expected formal styles of this period at all; they are more like through-composed monologues, but they still command impressive vocal resources.
The role of Rigoletto is the first fully developed character found in Verdi's operas; his changes of mood and emotion seem naturally wedded to the dramatic situation, and his music has an inevitable quality, seemingly driving the story to its tragic conclusion. The duets between Gilda and Rigoletto play an important role in the style of the opera: in the second scene of Act One, the mood created is one of the tender loving care of a father for his daughter, but by the end of Act II, the listener can sense his anger during "Tutte le feste al tempio" only to explode at "Si, vendetta." The tragic consequences of this anger become the focal point of the plot.

The opening of the final act contains two of the most famous pieces in all opera: the Duke's "La donna e mobile" (which needs no introduction), and the famous quartet, "Bella figlia dell'amore," in which each character is expressing a different emotion. An interesting element of the quartet is that all four characters are not in the same place, nor directly interacting with one another; while the Duke flirts with a woman inside Sparafucile's Inn , Rigoletto and Gilda peer through the window and comment on their own feelings.

While the music for both Gilda and the Duke looks back in form and content to earlier operas, that for Rigoletto shows Verdi starting down the path of dramatic characterization that would eventually culminate in Otello. With its wealth of famous arias and ensembles, Rigoletto will continue to be performed as long as there are singers capable of fulfilling the music's demands.

-- Richard LeSueur