by Giuseppe Verdi (libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Hugo)
seen by live streaming from Covent Garden on 16 January 2017
David McVicar's 2001 production is here revived by Justin Way with Alexander Joel conducting Dimitri Platanias as Rigoletto, Lucy Crowe as his daughter Gilda, and Michale Fabiano as the Duke of Mantua.
The setting of the story reeks of privileged corruption, the Duke setting the tone for his whole court with his droit de seigneur attitude towards any woman who takes his fancy. Rigoletto, the hunchbacked court jester, colludes in this to the extent that he mocks anyone who complains of the general debauchery; consequently he is not much liked by anyone else. Fatefully he imagines - as so many do - that he can control a barrier between his public behaviour and his private life, in which he expects he can protect his innocent daughter Gilda from any danger. He reckons without the strength of his enemies and the power of Gilda's naive love to lead to reckless self-sacrifice. The result is personal disaster, perhaps made worse by the realisation that there are apparently no adverse consequences for the Duke who just hums his way on towards the next seduction.
