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The opera novice: Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi
Sameer Rahim first heard Verdi's Rigoletto playing Grand Theft Auto. When he finally saw the opera he found a passionate drama with darkly glorious music.
Speaking to an opera-loving friend recently, I admitted that I’d never really got Verdi. “What,” he said, “how can you like Wagner and not Verdi?” I told him about my three experiences of the Italian composer: a semi-staged Macbeth sent me to sleep; La Traviata had great tunes but lacked depth; and I left halfway though the Albert Hall Aida – I just couldn’t stand another bombastic parade. “Ah,” my friend said, “you haven’t seen the best ones. Wait for Otello, Falstaff, and, the greatest of them all, Rigoletto.”
David McVicar’s production of Rigoletto at the Royal Opera House has just been revived, and I went along on Friday night hoping my friend was right. Based on a play by Victor Hugo, Verdi's opera is set at the Mantaun court where the jester Rigoletto serves the libertine Duke. Initially Rigoletto (1851) fell foul of censors who didn’t like the unflattering portrayal of the aristocracy, and even objected to the title character’s ugliness. “A hunchback who sings,” wrote Verdi in a frustrated letter, “Why not? … I thought it would be beautiful to portray this extremely deformed and ridiculous character who is inwardly passionate and full of love.” Indeed Rigoletto’s protective love for his daughter Gilda, rather than her romance with the Duke, is the work’s most affecting relationship.
McVicar’s opening scene is famous for its naked cavorting, girls led round on leashes and the like. These shenanigans can distract from the interesting contrast between the intense, violent music of the prelude, and the cheery court music. From the start merriment is tinged with darkness. (The Duke sings proudly of “La costanza, tiranna del core,” “Fidelity, the heart’s tyrant”.) It all gets a bit much when a woman is stripped naked for the Duke’s enjoyment; but what saves the scene from being gratuitous is the agonising moment when the woman’s father walks in on the rape. He curses the mocking Rigoletto – a curse that haunts him for the rest of the opera.
The deformed jester (Dimitri Platanias) is a combination of Shylock, Lear’s Fool and Richard III. “We’re two of a kind,” he says after meeting an assassin, “my weapon is my tongue, his is the dagger”. Crippled by self-hatred, he sings “If I am wicked, the fault is yours alone” but then – in a truly Shakespearean touch – overhears what he’s saying and corrects himself, “But here I become another person.” Like Shylock he keeps his daughter locked up to protect her from the dangers outside. “My whole world is you,” he sings to her in a touching duet, “I will protect you from fierce winds.”
Gilda (Ekaterina Siurina) is a passionate innocent. Her love duet with the Duke, who has managed to slip past Rigoletto’s defences, was a highlight of the evening. She falls for him the way first lovers fall – with little sense of proportion – but that makes us warm to her even more. Siurina performed Gilda’s famous aria “Caro nome” to thunderous applause from the audience – and I’ve found myself listening to it again and again in different versions. (There are plenty by Sutherland, Callas and others on YouTube)
The Duke (an ebullient Vittorio Grigolo) is also a mixed-up character. Like many ruthless seducers he has the fantasy that one day a pure woman will save him. This self-deceiving sentimentality is set to such fantastic music you cannot help (like poor Gilda) being taken in. He later reveals his true colours by singing, rather ungallantly, that she is “the woman who almost made me chaste”.
He also has one of Verdi’s best-known arias, “La Donna è Mobile”, “Women are fickle”, a jaunty drinking tune sung while waiting for a prostitute. Incidentally, I now recall that I first heard this aria while playing the computer game Grand Theft Auto. When you steal a car belonging to the Mafia they have the radio tuned to an opera station that plays “La Donna è Mobile” – a cute reference to the playful cynicism of the game, and perhaps even Jonathan Miller’s famous Godfather-era Rigoletto first performed in 1981.
Verdi knew he had a hit on his hands and apparently forbade the tenor from singing it openly at rehearsals to maximise the effect on opening night. What’s so clever is how the dramatic situation grinds against the catchy music. “Women are fickle, like feathers in the wind,” he sings, but as we hum along we recall Rigoletto’s warning about dangerous winds such as the Duke. The irony is that Gilda is tragically loyal to him. When she discovers her father’s plan to have her love killed, she engineers things to take his place. Stormy music wells up; the stage is lit like a Caravaggio. The violence, when it comes, is almost unbearable.
None of the operas I’ve seen so far has combined the taut plotting, psychological complexity and darkly glorious music as well as Rigoletto. The final scene when the dying Gilda asks forgiveness from her father is as moving as Lear’s farewell to Cordelia. I went to this opera in two minds about Verdi. But don’t worry – now I get it.