Verdi: Rigoletto
Yes, the King arrives, eventually!
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.
Top Cast
Louis Quilico
Rigoletto
Luciano Pavarotti
Il Duca di Mantua
Christiane Eda-Pierre
Gilda
Ara Berberian
Sparafucile
Isola Jones
Maddalena
John Darrenkamp
Marullo
Batyah Godfrey
Giovanna
Betsy Norden
Countess Ceprano
Norman Andersson
Count Ceprano
Charles Anthony
Borsa
Richard J. Clark
Monterone
James Levine
Self - Conductor
Nadyne Brewer
A page
Paul de Paola
Chief guard
MET Orchestra
