#rigoletto

[vepxv1]

[zippocreed501]

The set/stage for Rigoletto at the Bregenz Festival, 2021

[chessamade]

Major Arcana: Justice

This piece is back from late April 2019 and features one of the most explosive baritone arias from my favorite opera Rigoletto by Verdi. In this scene, "Cortigiani, vil razza," Rigoletto is certain his daughter is being held hostage by his employer the Duke and his courtiers who encourage the Duke's lecherous behavior, and he demands her release. The courtiers do not take Rigoletto's demands seriously and the aria changes from explosive fire, anger, and threats of physical violence to Rigoletto on his knees begging for even a scrap of empathy. It is one of the most heartbreaking scenes I have ever experienced, how in one moment this character is filled with righteous anger, and in the next is begging to be seen as a human being.

The most influential recording on me has been the one with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the role of Rigoletto, with Rennata Scotto as Gilda and Carlo Bergonzi as the Duke. At the moment of posting, that whole recording is available to listen to here.

I also really love Sherrill Milnes as Rigoletto; he always brings a majesty and heartbreaking quality to his work. Here he is singing the aria that this card depicts.

[bluberimufim]

Is the brooding jester painting even about Rigoletto or did everyone just wake up one day and decide to assign it to him?

[supercantaloupe]

realized this morning that the price rigoletto pays sparafucile to kill the duke is the same amount belcore gives nemorino to enlist as a soldier. for the low low price of 20 scudi you too can kill a man or be drafted, take your pick

[beckmessering]

so. here’s my @operablr-secret-santa gift for @supercantaloupe 💛

it’s an ✨𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓅𝓇𝑒𝓉𝒶𝓉𝒾𝓋𝑒 𝓅𝒶𝒾𝓃𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔✨ of rigoletto’s 2nd act. (details are below the cut)

i have been on a roll with anatomical hearts this year & i’ve made a whole series lol so here we go. personally, i think “piangi, fanciulla” is one of the most touching parts of the whole opera. it really encapsulates what it means to be a parent: you might be doing shittily, and be sick with worry, but if your kid is doing badly and needs your stability, you do anything you can to offer it to them. so i drew this heart, cut it out w/ an empty space, and stapled it back to the original drawing paper on black background.

stapling is a method of wound closure, which metaphorically stands for both rigoletto’s and gilda’s fraught, emotionally injured state. they’re both mentally banged up quite a bit, in different ways. at the same time, stapling as a method doesn’t seem as neat as stitching. it always ends up kind of rough. when we staple paper, we slam our hand on the stapler, quickly, and when we staple wounds, we do it because it’s faster than stitching. stapling is for mass casualty situations. it’s for when your kid needs to cry and so do you, but you’re the parent and you have to have your shit together and be the stable one, so you slam your hand on the stapler and tell your daughter it’s okay, she can cry.

[malusienki]

secret santa for @beckmessering !! i drew simon keenlyside as rigoletto (a prod from wiener staatsoper iirc) happy holidays!

@operablr-secret-santa

[adventuressclubamericas]

For tonight's musical interlude, a song featured in S3E3, Murder and the Mozzrella. From Verdi's "Rigoletto," here's Enrico Caruso with "La donna è mobile."

[moodboardmix]

Rigoletto Opera Set, Basel, Switzerland,

Pierre Yovanovitch,

Photographs: Paolo Abate & Matthias Baus

[leporellian]

rigoletto is an opera for bitches who sympathized with the hyenas in the lion king when they were kids

[princesssarisa]

The Top 40 Most Popular Operas, Part 1 (#1 through #10)

A quick guide for newcomers to the genre, with links to online video recordings of complete performances with English subtitles.

Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)

The most frequently performed opera worldwide: Mozart's fascinating, philosophical fairy tale opera, which appeals to both children and adults.

San Francisco Opera, 2010 (Piotr Beczala, Dina Kuznetsoca, Christopher Maltman, Erika Miklosa, Georg Zeppenfeld; conducted by Donald Runnicles)

Verdi's La Traviata

Tragic romance with social commentary, based on Alexandre Dumas fils' novel The Lady of the Camellias, which was also the basis for the classic 1936 Greta Garbo film Camille.

Los Angeles Opera, 2006 (Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazon, Renato Bruson; conducted by James Conlon)

Bizet's Carmen

The fiery tragedy of a seductive, free-spirited Spanish Romani woman and her loves, with some of opera's most iconic music.

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2006 (Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann, Ildebrando d'Arcancelo, Norah Ansellem; conducted by Antonio Pappano)

Puccini's La Bohéme

Relatable slice-of-life romance that blends comedy and tragedy. The inspiration for the popular musical RENT.

Studio film, 1965 (Mirella Freni, Gianni Raimondi, Rolando Panerai, Adriana Martino; conducted by Herbert von Karajan)

Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)

The best loved of Mozart's Italian operas, a great comedy of class conflict and sexual intrigue.

Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1994 (Gerald Finley, Alison Hagley, Renée Fleming, Andreas Schmidt, Marie-Ange Todorovich; conducted by Bernard Haitink)

Puccini's Tosca

Political intrigue, lust, and bloodshed amid the splendor of Rome – some call it a "shabby little shocker," others call it thrilling.

Vienna State Opera, 2019 (Sondra Radvanovsky, Piotr Beczala, Thomas Hampson; conducted by Marco Armiliato)

Mozart's Don Giovanni

Arguably the greatest retelling of the legend of Don Juan, with comedy, drama, and Mozart's glorious music.

Salzburg Festival, 1954 (Cesare Siepi, Otto Edelmann, Elisabeth Grümmer, Anton Dermota, Lisa della Casa, Erna Berger, Walter Berry Deszö Ernster; conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler)

Puccini's Madama Butterfly

Puccini's iconic "Japanese tragedy." Controversial from a racial standpoint, but a tearjerker nonetheless, and the inspiration for the musical Miss Saigon.

Feature film, 1995 (Ying Huang, Richard Troxell, Ning Liang, Richard Cowan; conducted by James Conlon)

Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville)

The lighter and more madcap prequel to The Marriage of Figaro, known as the quintessential comic opera.

Vienna State Opera, 2019 (Rafael Fingerlos, Juan Diego Flórez, Margarita Gritskova, Paolo Rumetz, Sorin Coliban; conducted by Evelino Pidò)

Verdi's Rigoletto

A richly melodic tragedy of a hunchbacked jester, his daughter, a lecherous duke, and a self-fulfilling curse.

Studio film, 1982 (Ingvar Wixell, Luciano Pavarotti, Edita Gruberova; conducted by Riccardo Chailly)

[tjtevlin]

On our way to The Metropolitan Opera to see Rigoletto. 📖

[opera-ghosts]

New Year’s Eve 1904 at The Metropolitan Opera. Verdi's „Rigoletto“ with Caruso and as Gilda Alma Webster-Powell (1869-1930). This was the only evening that she sung this role at the Met. But take a look on her very interesting biography.

[halogenwarrior]

Drawing connections between Rigoletto (Verdi opera), Beloved by Toni Morrison and The Brothers Karamazov (particularly the subplot with Ilyusha and his father) in how they approach the figure of the parent and their relationship with the child when that parent is othered, oppressed and mocked by the society around them. It’s about how a parent is the hero and star of a young child’s life when they don’t know any other people well, the most fully human amidst a cast of background characters, and in being looked at this way it makes the parent themselves feel fully human because it’s such a huge (if not universal or necessary) part of the human experience. It is about how parental love is the first thing denied by those who want to dehumanize others is that full humanity, that the oppressed person becomes a supporting figure, the servant in the metaphorical comedy who, according to comic conventions is not allowed to speak in verse and display the full range of human emotion. Rigoletto’s aria where he describes being made to be a figure of fun, denied tears and other emotions; Nikolai Snegiryov laughed out of Dmitri’s trial when he is drunk out of grief for his dying son. In the most extreme form, the depiction in Beloved of the very real practice of taking enslaved people’s children away from them. It’s about how there’s something frightful, tyrannical about the total sway and authority a parent has over a young child being necessary to prove one’s humanity, how this, but how the surrounding world dehumanizing both parent and child can give few other options but completely swallowing up the child’s world and becoming their god, and neverletting the rest of the world in and showing that the world outside sees you as nothing. It’s about the question of when this is about ego and power and when this is simply the only way to create another world within yourself, a world where you and them are human and the horrible treatment that befell you will never befall them. Even if it means lying and hiding everything from your child, even if it means killing them. It’s about (and note here how the Brothers Karamazov has a lot about the concept of childhood innocence) how the ultimate destroyer of innocence in childhood isn’t always merely finding out your parents are flawed, it’s about realizing the world spits on your parent, the world sees your parent as nothing, and your parent can do nothing to protect you from the fact that you are will share their fate. 

[rayatii]

Got a video on my YouTube recommended titled "A Guide to Verdi's Problematic Opera That Aged... Poorly", and the opera in question is Rigoletto. I am not sure to which degree I agree. Let's discuss?