Rigoletto – Opera Holland Park, London

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi

Conductor: Lee Reynolds

Director: Cecilia Stinton

Opera Holland Park’s new Rigoletto is full of fresh ideas, the whole production vibrating with life. Director Cecilia Stinton’s inspired transformation of Verdi’s Mantuan court into the Oxford of the 1920s works brilliantly as does Neil Irish’s fabulous design. Throughout the overture the scene swarms with revellers, waiters and dons, but the setting’s superficial charm, all bells, bicycles and bunting, quickly reveals its underlying toxic masculinity. Throughout, Bullingdon Club bullies quaff champagne and banter and finally, in a shocking moment, gang up on one of their members to deliver a humiliating debagging.

The City of London Sinfonia, thrillingly conducted by Lee Reynolds, is on fine form. The only misstep early on is the directorial decision to recreate the scratchy sounds of an old wind-up gramophone. The result of forcing the orchestra to play over nasty pre-recorded sound, is an almost unbearable dissonance which makes no sense dramatically or musically.

Once we’re through this and an occasional lack of balance between voices and orchestra, the production finds its feet. Opera Holland Park Chorus is both robust and light-footed, its jubilantly triumphant singing pointing up the careless cruelty of Verdi’s courtiers.

The soloists are excellent. Alessandro Scotto di Luzio as the Duke is a silky charmer and Simon Wilding a truly sinister Sparafucile. Stephen Gadd at first seems a less powerful presence as Rigoletto, not least because the decision to turn Verdi’s Il Gobbo, the hunchbacked jester, into a slightly lame but otherwise patrician presence. In the first act it’s hard to see why he should be the butt of everyone’s jokes. Gadd comes into his own, however, in later scenes. With Gilda his voice is passionately tender and later still, he is convincingly steely as Rigoletto is consumed by his desire for revenge.

Alison Langer’s glorious voice makes her a moving Gilda. It seems a pity, however, that Gilda’s virginal innocence is represent by a rather frumpy costume. It makes it harder to believe the Duke’s intense passion and indeed their duet in Act 1, while beautifully sung, lacks this essential ingredient. Her subsequent aria, Coro nome, however, is absolutely exquisite.

Indeed this production really brings out the deep contrasts in the work, as the frivolity of the court is left behind. Stinton makes excellent use of Opera Holland Park unique stage, the thrust in front of the orchestra creating intense, intimate scenes. Sparafucile’s run-down pub in Act 3 is suitably seedy, while the overall breadth of the stage allows for glimpses of sinister cloaked figures hiding in the darkness outside. Rigoletto’s storm scene is wonderfully realised by lighting designer Jake Wiltshire: lightning rips around the auditorium as Verdi’s orchestral music rumbles and roars.

This production fully conveys the intensity of the work as it moves inexorably towards its tragic climax. The highpoint is the extraordinary quartet, where the Duke, following his infamous Donna è mobile, smoothly recycles his seductive lines to a self-possessed Maddalena (Hannah Pedley). Langer is particularly poignant here (Ah cosi parlar d’amore’, expressing Gilda’s heart-break at hearing the Duke’s precious words of love so flippantly addressed to another. Gadd continues to grow in strength as he dismisses Gilda’s tears as useless. Darkness quickly begins to envelope the characters and the music, ending in a truly powerful final scene as Rigoletto discovers the horrifying truth.

Runs until 24 June 2023