In his early operas, Verdi
honored the conventions of Italian opera. With RIGOLETTO he transformed
them. The characters are drawn with insight and compassion and maintain
their musical individuality in ensembles as well as solos, nowhere more
imaginatively than in the magnificent last act quartet that captured four
voices in a blend of contradictory emotions. In order
to escape Austrian censorship which was wide spread in Italy at the time
Verdi composed RIGOLETTO, he used the play of Victor Hugo entitled “The
King Amuses Himself.” By changing the names of Francis I to the Duke
of Mantua and Tribouletto to Rigoletto, Verdi was able to disguise frank
commentary on a decadent society that would otherwise have been considered
scandalous and been censored.
| Before the opera begins,
the Duke of Mantua, an absolute ruler who seduces women as he pleases,
and his hunchback court jester, Rigoletto, his accomplice and henchman,
have abducted Count Monterone's daughter and the unfortunate woman has
committed suicide. As the curtain rises on Act I, in
the court of Mantua, cruel and foolish men and women of pleasure flatter
the Duke while dancing. They gossip about Rigoletto, whom they wrongfully
suspect is secretly keeping a young lover in his home. The young
woman in Rigoletto's house is in fact his daughter, Gilda, whom he dearly
loves. |
The relationship between
father and daughter is at the heart of RIGOLETTO, a motif often revisited
in the operas of Verdi, a man who sadly never achieved happy fatherhood
in his own life.
| The courtiers conspire with
the Duke to play a joke on Rigoletto. Believing that Gilda is Rigoletto's
lover, the womanizing Duke disguises himself and takes advantage of her.
Tragically, the naive Gilda falls in love with him. After realizing
the Duke has seduced his daughter, Rigoletto tries to cover his despair
and anger with jokes, but determines to take revenge and hires Sparafucile,
an assassin, to kill the Duke. |
The Duke’s seduction of
Gilda causes Rigoletto to lose his sense of life. Gilda was for him
the only beam of light among the low passions of his work, which he was
forced to do by “nature,” really the class system of his time. This
dilemma is the "curse" of Rigoletto.
Verdi had first intended
to entitle the opera THE CURSE, but later decided upon RIGOLETTO.
The character of Rigoletto stands at the center of the opera in all his
complexity and inconsistency. Deformed in outward appearance, he
nonetheless cherishes a secret that makes up the better half of his nature;
he loves and above all else wants to protect his daughter. The original
play has passages where the spoken word is inadequate to do justice to
his feelings. In the opera, the eloquence of song and the intensity
of the orchestral sound are essential in projecting the broken hearted
father's suffering and the complex depiction of his mental conflict.
In his notes Verdi wrote, "For my part, I would like to see the character
shown as deformed and ridiculous in outward appearance, but passionate
and full of love within. It is for these qualities that I chose the
subject."
| When Gilda understands that
her father has hired an assassin to kill the Duke, she decides to die in
his place. Disguised as a man, she replaces the Duke. |
To the play of Victor Hugo,
Verdi adds the theme of predestination represented both by Rigoletto’s
deformity and by his disgraceful position of “fool" in society. Tragedy
is a dramatic form that tells a sad story that could have been happy except
for wrong choices characters made for “good” reasons. Rigoletto’s
conspiracy with the criminal Sparafucile and desire for revenge secure
his tragic destiny. His beloved daughter dies because of his own
assassination order.
The story presents an excellent
balance between the light and shadows of human emotions, between drama
and comedy, between honesty and deception. As the drama unfolds against
this backdrop of contrasts, the truth emerges and the opera concludes with
the “predestined” destruction of the unhappy heroes, Rigoletto and Gilda,
who symbolically represent man’s relationship to his eternal soul.
Rigoletto's deformity mirrors his internal spiritual crisis and imbalance.
He betrays his own heart, resulting in the dissolution of his personality
and the loss of his soul.
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