12/07/13 – MET BEGINS! Rigoletto – 1:00pm

Metropolitan Opera

Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
based on the play Le Roi s’Amuse by Victor Hugo

Sung in Italian
Approximate running time 3 hrs. 2 min.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings the title role of Verdi’s tragic masterpiece for the first time at the Met in Michael Mayer’s dazzling production set in Las Vegas—the neon-bedecked hit of the 2012–13 season. Matthew Polenzani is the womanizing Duke, and Irina Lungu and Sonya Yoncheva, both in their Met debuts, sing Gilda.

Dmitri Hvorostovsky is “riveting… infusing phrases with dusky richness and shaping melodic lines with an elegance that lent tragic stature to this oppressed and inwardly bitter character.”
—New York Times

Pablo Heras-Casado “led an engrossing account of this great Verdi score…This was an auspicious Met debut.”
—New York Times

Pablo Heras-Casado “led an engrossing account of this great Verdi score…This was an auspicious Met debut.”

—New York Times
Matthew Polenzani “adds an impressive new notch to his long Met career as the Duke.”
—New York Observer

Irina Lungu’s voice “has the brightness you associate with most coloratura sopranos, but also bloom and warmth… she is a first-rate Gilda…”
—New York Times

 

Cast/Crew