Rigoletto - Family Guide

The Washington Opera’s Student Guide to the Opera Look-

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RIGOLETTO IS SET IN MANTUA, I TALY, IN THE 1500S.

Prelude

The opera begins with the orchestra playing the foreboding theme of the curse to come.

ct I The Duke of Mantua’s palace. As the curtain rises, we hear the voices of celebrating guests

as the DUKE OF MANTUA [MAN-too-ah] boasts about the power he has to easily win a lady’s love. The Duke mentions one girl he is pursuing and how he meets her every Sunday at church. Soon, however, he is distracted by the other women of the court. He declares COUNTESS CEPRANO [cheh-PRAH-no] the loveliest and begins to flirt with her. Rejecting him at first, the Countess leaves the party on the Duke’s arm which greatly upsets her husband, COUNT CEPRANO, who is also a party guest. The court jester, RIGOLETTO [ree-goh-LET-toh], has witnessed the Duke win over the Countess and in order to amuse the crowd, begins to taunt and ridicule the Count, making him storm off after his wife.

Rigoletto leaves the room. In his absence, a courtier spreads a rumor that Rigoletto has a love of his own at home. The group is very surprised at the idea of this unfortunate man having a sweetheart. Soon, the Duke, with

Rigoletto at his heels, re-enters and wants to know what to do with the Countess’ husband so that the Duke might be her new love. The jester suggests stealing her and begins to mock the Count again. Even though the Count threatens him with a sword, Rigoletto is certain that, as long as he is in the Duke’s favor, no harm can come to him. Just then, the elderly COUNT MONTERONE [mon-te-ROH-neh] enters with revenge in mind and tells the court how the Duke has disrespected his daughter. As usual, the jester mocks the Count by imitating him and the Duke immediately orders Monterone’s arrest. As the guards pull Count Monterone off the stage, he places a curse on the jester.

ct II Scene 1

A dark street in Mantua outside Rigoletto’s house. Feeling the seriousness of the curse, Rigoletto heads home. On his way, he encounters an assassin named SPARAFUCILE [spah-rahfoo-CHEE-leh] who offers his services. Rigoletto seems interested, but asks him to leave. Alone, he compares the sharpness of his tongue to that of a dagger. As he enters his home, Rigoletto’s lovely young daughter, GILDA [JEEL-dah], comes to greet him. She is a sheltered girl who is only allowed to go out to church on Sundays.

Scenery design of the Duke’s

Unknown to Rigoletto or Gilda, the Duke manages to sneak into their garden and finds, much to his surprise, that the girl he had been secretly pursuing is his jester’s daughter. As soon as Rigoletto leaves his house again, the Duke comes out from hiding and confesses his love to the naïve Gilda, uses a fake name and convinces her that he is a penniless student. He hears footsteps and flees from the garden.

Outside the gate, the Duke’s courtiers decide to get revenge on Rigoletto’s incessant mockery by stealing the girl whom they think is Rigoletto’s girlfriend, Gilda. They cleverly manage to trick the jester into helping them kidnap his own daughter. Only after they are gone does he realize that they have taken Gilda and that Count Monterone’s curse is taking effect.

Scene 2 A large hall in the Duke’s palace. Rigoletto rushes to the palace to rescue his daughter. After pleading with the kidnappers to let him see the girl, Gilda runs out of a locked room and confesses that she loves the Duke. She tells her father how they met at church every day and how he found her. Rigoletto angrily swears revenge, but because of her love, Gilda begs him to forgive the Duke.

the Duke’s body in the river that flows nearby.

Sparafucile shows the Duke to his room, leaving him to sing his famous aria, “La donna è mobile.” In this aria, the Duke sings about his view of women: that they are fickle and changeable, adoring you one moment and ignoring you the next. Gilda, now disguised as a young man, returns to the inn after her father has left.

The Duke has turned in for the evening and Maddalena, won over by his charms, asks that Sparafucile spare his life. Finally, Sparafucile agrees and he decides to kill the next person who walks through the inn door before midnight instead. Gilda overhears this conversation from outside the inn. She loves the Duke so much that she foolishly decides to enter the room and die in his place. Because Gilda is now dressed as a man, Sparafucile immediately does away with her, taking her for an unsuspecting and unfortunate male beggar. If Rigoletto had not insisted on Gilda disguising herself as a man, Sparafucile would have noticed a woman entering, perhaps taken pity, and spared her life.

Rigoletto returns at midnight and collects what he thinks is the Duke’s body in a sack. He rejoices in what he believes to be his just revenge. As he is about to throw the sack in the river, he hears, with great astonishment, the Duke singing his famous aria “La donna è mobile” again. Since it is obviously not the Duke in the sack, Rigoletto tears it open to find out who it is. To his horror and disbelief, he finds the one person he treasures, the dying Gilda. Even then, she begs him to forgive the Duke. Rigoletto falls across her body and cries out that the curse has finally been fulfilled. Y

ct III Nighttime. An inn by the river MINCIO [MEEN-cho]

(THE LOOK-IN BEGINS HERE)

Blinded by rage, Rigoletto has already decided to hire the assassin Sparafucile to do away with the Duke. He is here to make sure that the assignment is carried out. Rigoletto and Gilda are outside the inn, unseen to those inside. He wants to show the girl how unfaithful the Duke really is. The Duke is at the inn and wastes no time in pursuing Sparafucile’s attractive sister and accomplice, MADDALENA [mah-dah-LEHna], with words of love. Gilda is broken-hearted as she watches the Duke betray her. Sparafucile comes out and collects part of his fee from the jester. Rigoletto then sends Gilda home, telling her to dress in men’s clothing to keep her safe and disguised as they will be leaving for the city of Verona. Intent on contributing to the Duke’s disposal, Rigoletto plans to return to the inn at midnight and throw

Costume sketch for Gilda

Characters in the Opera

Rigoletto [ree-goh-LET-toh], baritone — a hunchbacked court jester, father of Gilda

Gilda [JEEL-dah], soprano — a young girl and Rigoletto’s only child, in love with the Duke of Mantua

The Duke of Mantua [MAN-too-ah], tenor — a wealthy young nobleman and ladies’ man

Sparafucile [spah-rah-foo-CHEE-leh], bass — an assassin for hire

Maddalena [mah-dah-LEH-na], mezzo-soprano — Sparafucile’s beautiful sister and collaborator

Victor Hugo was born in France during the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars. His father was a general under Napoleon’s command. Early on, young Victor began writing well enough to become noticed by the King of France. Hugo wrote with such passion that one of his plays sparked riots among some of the audience members. Every morning, Victor Hugo would write at least 100 lines of verse or 20 pages of prose. This gave him a huge amount of work, so much so, that much of it was still being published after his death.

Victor Hugo went on to write novels such as Notre-Dame de Paris (also known as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame), and Les Misérables, which has been made into an awardwinning musical. Both works have been turned into movies many times over. In 1832, Hugo wrote the play Le Roi s’amuse (The King amuses himself). Giuseppe Verdi chose to base Rigoletto on this work. Hugo objected to his play becoming an opera and wrote letters to keep it from any stage in Paris for six years. But once he saw the opera, he immediately changed his mind. He understood how opera can express dialogue in ways which a spoken drama cannot. Victor Hugo died in 1885, and his stories continue to inspire his audience, composers, and filmmakers. If you have enjoyed Disney’s animated film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and the world-famous musical Les Misérables, you have Mr. Hugo to thank for his universally appealing stories. Y

Can you interpret Victor Hugo’s quote?

“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) Writer

Haijing Fu as Rigoletto

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901) Composer

Giuseppe Verdi was born to working class parents in the north of the country that was to become Italy in his lifetime. He began studying music at the age of four and by ten, he was a full-time organist at a local church. As a teenager, he was writing everything from marching band music to church music. Nevertheless, when he applied to the Milan Conservatory of Music at age 18, he was rejected because he was too old and not promising enough a talent to waive the age limit. He studied privately instead.

In 1842, he scored his first major success with his opera, Nabucco, which was based on a biblical theme. The work was tremendously popular and marked the beginning of his celebrity. Over the next 51 years, he wrote 25 more operas that earned him worldwide fame. (Nowadays, he would be called a superstar). Rigoletto, La Traviata, and Aida are three of his best known works. His operas are distinguished for their emotional intensity and wealth of memorable melodies.

Verdi loved his country very much and wanted foreign rulers out of Italy, which finally became a unified nation in 1861. He then served in the new Italian parliament. When he died of a stroke in 1901, 200,000 people blocked the streets of Milan and the entire country went into mourning. Y

SWITZERLAND AUSTRIA

Although Italy did not exist yet as the country we know today, this map will give you an idea of the location of some of the cities mentioned both in the opera’s plot and in this study guide. Until Italy became a unified nation in 1861 (centuries after the story of the opera and a few years after Verdi wrote Rigoletto), the land was a series of separate kingdoms, Papal States and duchies (a territory ruled by a duke or duchess). Some areas had even been controlled by France and then by Austria. Y

MEDITERRANEANSEA

ADRIATICSEA

•ROME

MANTUA•

•

VERONA

FRANCESCO MARIA PIAVE [fran-CHESS-koh mah-REE-ah PYAH-veh] was the librettist (one who writes the words for opera) for eight of Verdi’s 27 operas, including Rigoletto and La Traviata. A year after the famous Italian opera house LA FENICE [la feh-NEE-cheh] in Venice contracted him to compose a new opera, Verdi began writing to Piave about adapting Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’amuse. Piave and Verdi had already collaborated on bringing another Hugo work, Hernani, to the operatic stage in 1844. That play was the controversial story of a nobleman turned bandit. Verdi insisted that Piave “...find someone of influence to get permission to do Le Roi s’amuse. So Piave began the process of writing the libretto and gaining the permission to perform the opera. One of the roadblocks Piave and Verdi had to overcome in order to get this work to the stage was opposition from the authorities. The local government and even the police strongly objected to an opera based on a “dangerous” play by Hugo, that had the audacity to present a king as a hateful character. Things were shaky enough with the foreign powers that had invaded Italy without a popular composer fanning the fires of revolution. Verdi and Piave changed Hugo’s original character from a French king to an Italian duke, reworked some of the story’s details and renamed it Rigoletto. The censors finally allowed the work to be produced. Rigoletto was a smash hit, not only in Italy, but all over the world. Y

Francesco Maria Piave (1810-1876) Librettist

Was there a real Rigoletto?

Victor Hugo’s play and Verdi’s adaptation of Rigoletto are not entirely fictional. The main characters were based on historical figures. For instance, the jester, Rigoletto, was based on a jester named TRIBOULET [treeboo-LEH] who lived at the 16th century French court of the great monarch, FRANÇOIS I [frahn-SWAH]. Triboulet did not have a daughter as Rigoletto did, but he was taken into the royal court by KING LOUIS XII for protection after his wittiness nearly caused a court page boy to kill him. François I was Louis XII’s predecessor as well as the inspiration for the Duke of Mantua. He lived in the first half of the 16th century and was called a “Renaissance man” for his good taste and patronage toward the arts, poetry, politics, and hunting. Louis XII was described as good-looking, charming, witty, and flamboyant. But, just like the Duke of Mantua, he was a self-centered man notorious for being a ladies’ man. After one unsuccessful flirting session, he wrote the words “Woman is fickle! He who trusts her is a fool.” Verdi and his librettist, Piave, used these words for one of the most famous arias of the opera, “La donna è mobile”. Y

The Basics of Opera

An OPERA, like a play, is a story that is performed on a stage with scenery, props, and costumes. However, unlike a play, the words in opera are sung instead of spoken, and the singers are accompanied by an orchestra. The combination of drama with both vocal and orchestral music results in a unique art form that can tell a story with great emotional intensity.

Operas are divided into acts and scenes which contain different types of vocal pieces for one or more singers. An ARIA is a vocal solo, which focuses on a character’s emotions rather than his or her actions. The Duke’s famous aria, “La donna è mobile” (Woman is fickle) expresses his basic philosophy on women.

ENSEMBLES occur when two or more characters sing together, and are designed to meet the demands of the story. When two characters sing, it is called a DUET. A TRIO is for three singers. A QUARTET, such as the one including the baritone, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and soprano in the last act of Rigoletto, is for four singers. Listen for how beautifully Verdi combines all the voices, all singing different words, into one very effective expression of their characters.

Since Rigoletto is sung in Italian, there will be an English translation projected above the stage, called SUR TITLES, that will explain the meaning of the Italian lyrics. Even without the translation, the music is your main clue to understanding the story. Y

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