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| Duke of Mantua (Gianluca Terranova) and Countess Ceprano (Valentina Fleer) in Rigoletto. Photo by Robert Millard. |
By Ed Rampell
I had a hunch that L.A. Opera’s production of Rigoletto, the tale about the titular hunchbacked harlequin, would be hunky-dory. Indeed, composer Giuseppe Verdi called it “my best opera” and it is one of the most superb shows I’ve seen at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Verily, this vivid version of the 1851 classic about the comedian with a hump is a humdinger that will leave audiences humming Verdi’s virtuoso melodies.
Verdi’s sonorous score rendered under the commanding baton of James Conlon is, but of course, nothing short of superb. The colorful costumes designed by Constance Hoffman transport audiences back in time to 16th century Italy. The sets of medieval Mantua wrought by skilled scenery designer Michael Yeargan on a slanted stage that enhances perspective bear a striking resemblance to the haunting paintings by Italian surrealist Giorgio De Chirico -- all that seems missing are the Greek-born painter’s trademark locomotives about to smash into brick walls. A canny choice: because if De Chirico’s canvases visualize frustration, Rigoletto is largely about thwarted love and lust.
Rigoletto was one of the social outcasts Verdi specialized in. Along with Porgy of the Gershwin Brothers’ Porgy and Bess, Rigoletto is one of opera-dom’s greatest physically deformed characters (although it should be duly noted that operas are full of mentally twisted dramatis personae). Baritone George Gagnidze of Georgia (Stalin’s, not Scarlett’s) brings down the opera house as the tortured court jester, those medieval stand-up comics whose comedy clubs were castles and palaces. The disabled comedian bridles at his lot in life, which is to amuse the Duke of Mantua (Italian tenor Gianluca Terranova depicts the raunchy royal) and his feckless, scheming, mean-spirited courtiers. Rigoletto is the archetypal clown laughing on the outside but crying on the inside.
However, the ribald Rigoletto is also a sultan of insults with a cutting Don Rickles rapier-like wit. He joins all the Duke’s men in belittling Count Ceprano (bass Matthew Anchel), who is cuckolded by the libertine (not so) nobleman, and Count Monterone (bass Daniel Sumegi), whose daughter is likewise seduced by the lady killer Duke. Incensed by Rigoletto’s barbs and mockery the count curses the jester.
The curse of Monterone apparently rewrites the Golden Rule, changing it to: “Do not do unto others what you don’t what others to do unto you.” Rigoletto learns this lesson the hard way, as the rapacious, deceptive Duke turns his sexual attentions towards Rigoletto’s own daughter, Gilda (soprano Sarah Coburn, who L.A. Opera aficionados may remember from 2009’s presentation of Giaochino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville). Stung once too often by Rigoletto’s jibes, the courtiers merrily and maliciously turn the tables on the humpbacked not-so funnyman.
Speaking of sopranos, Rigoletto solicits stiletto-wielding assassin Sparafucile (bassi profundi Andrea Silvestrelli) to do a hit on the fickle Duke, who plays with women’s emotions the way Niccolo Paganini played the violin. Sparafucile acts in league with his sister, the bawdy Maddalena (mezzo soprano Kendall Gladen, who previously appeared in L.A. Opera’s equally grand Carmen by Georges Bizet), to entrap and liquidate the randy Duke. But as male chauvinists have it, frailty, thy name is woman, and all hell breaks loose with one of opera’s most colossal disasters and backfires, as Rigoletto gets his “jest” desserts for ridiculing and humiliating so many for so long. The best laid plans of mice and men…
Back during the 1980s I saw a production of Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera, which rather strongly implied that the reason why the hunchback was so zealously overprotective of Gilda was that the deformed father had an incestuous desire to hump his daughter. But there’s none of that Oedipal-like theorizing in this production deftly directed by Mark Lamos. Although Verdi composed the music, the Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Le roi s’amuse by one of France’s greatest men of letters, none other than Victor Hugo –- who wrote that other masterpiece about a hunchback named Quasimodo.
This opera is a masterpiece and the poignant saga of the man with the hump will leave a lump in your throat.
Rigoletto runs through Dec. 18, L.A. Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown Los Angeles. For more information: 213/972-8001; www.laopera.com
