Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, first performed in 1851 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. It tells the tragedy of a court jester who tries to protect his daughter Gilda from the Duke of Mantua, an unscrupulous seducer, and ends up causing her death. Based on Victor Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse, it weaves courtly satire, fatherly tenderness and fate into a drama of unrelenting tension.
Act I. At a party in the ducal palace of Mantua, the Duke boasts of his conquests while the hunchbacked jester Rigoletto mocks Count Monterone, whose daughter has been dishonoured. Monterone curses the jester. On his way home, Rigoletto crosses paths with the assassin Sparafucile, then greets his daughter Gilda, whom he keeps hidden from the world. The Duke, disguised as a poor student, courts the young woman. That very night the courtiers abduct Gilda, believing her to be the jester's mistress.
Act II. At the palace, the Duke rejoices that Gilda is in his apartments. Rigoletto searches for her, feigning indifference, then erupts before the courtiers in "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata". Gilda appears and confesses her dishonour. As Monterone passes on his way to prison, Rigoletto vows to avenge her and kill the Duke.
Act III. By the river, at Sparafucile's inn, the Duke sings "La donna è mobile" and courts Maddalena, the assassin's sister, while Rigoletto forces Gilda to watch. The jester has paid for the Duke's death, but Maddalena intercedes and Sparafucile agrees to kill instead the first stranger to arrive at the inn. Gilda, still in love, offers herself to the knife. Rigoletto is handed a sack, finds his dying daughter inside and understands that Monterone's curse has been fulfilled.
Verdi started from Le roi s'amuse, Victor Hugo's play, banned in Paris for its portrait of a libertine king. The Austrian censor in Venice forced the action to be moved to the court of Mantua and the King of France to become a duke. First performed on 11 March 1851 at La Fenice, the opera was an immediate success and opened what became known as Verdi's popular trilogy, alongside Il trovatore and La traviata.
"La donna è mobile" is one of the best-known melodies in the repertoire; Verdi kept it under wraps until the premiere to preserve the surprise. Gilda has a delicate coloratura aria in "Caro nome", and Rigoletto one of the great Verdi monologues in "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata". The quartet in the final act, "Bella figlia dell'amore", overlays four voices and four distinct emotions with admirable clarity.
Rigoletto portrays the abuse of power and the price paid by the weak, a subject that does not age. The jester, complicit in evil until evil catches up with him, is a figure of complex humanity. Verdi tells his story at a theatrical pace that never slackens.
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