02/04/17 – Rigoletto – 1pm

Metropolitan Opera

Rigoletto
Composed by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave

• Sung in Italian
• ESTIMATED RUN TIME 3 HRS 2 MINS
• front page photo credit: Karen Almond/Metropolitan Opera

Michael Mayer’s hit production of Rigoletto places the action in a neon-bedecked Las Vegas in 1960. Stephen Costello and Joseph Calleja alternate as the womanizing Duke, Olga Peretyatko is the innocent Gilda, and Željko Lučić reprises his heartbreaking take on the tragic title role. Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts.

World premiere: Teatro la Fenice, Venice, 1851. Met premiere: November 16, 1883. A dramatic journey of undeniable force, Rigoletto was immensely popular from its premiere and remains fresh and powerful to this day. The story, based on a controversial play by Victor Hugo, tells of an outsider—a hunchbacked jester—who struggles to balance the dueling elements of beauty and evil that exist in his life. Written during the most fertile period of Verdi’s artistic life, the opera resonates with a universality that is frequently called Shakespearean.