Verdi: Rigoletto (1981)
Overview
The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely counterpoised: the plotting courtiers against the plotting Sparafucile and Maddalena (also ambiguously tender-hearted). When Rigoletto says "Pari siamo", he could be expressing the motto of the whole work: the beautiful and the ugly can be equally good, equally evil.
Cast
Louis Quilico
Rigoletto
Luciano Pavarotti
Il Duca di Mantua
Christiane Eda-Pierre
Gilda
Isola Jones
Maddalena
James Levine
Self - Conductor
