The opera world has been blessed with a brilliant new Rigoletto in Ernesto Petti. The Italian baritone is making his house and role debut and Australian audiences are privileged to witness the occasion.

That Petti is appearing alongside Stacey Alleaume in the late Elijah Moshinsky’s landmark staging of Verdi’s masterpiece only makes this an even more unmissable event. Having last seen this production when it first premiered in 1991, it is pleasing to note that its potency has not faded.

Ernesto Petti as Rigoletto in Opera Australia’s 2023 production of Rigoletto. Photo © Keith Saunders

Moshinsky died in 2021, but his contribution to the world of opera is still felt today. Over more than four decades, his career straddled the historically informed opulence of Zeffirelli and the renaissance of Regietheater best typified by Patrice Chéreau’s centenary Ring Cycle at Bayreuth and the productions of Peter Sellars and Jonathan Miller.

By the time Moshinsky came to direct Rigoletto in 1991, Miller had already turned heads with his 1982 production at the English National Opera, transferring the action to 1950s Little Italy – a world inspired by Edward Hopper and populated by Mafia types.

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