Verdi: Rigoletto (1981)

Yes, the King arrives, eventually!

The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely counterpoised: the plotting courtiers against the plotting Sparafucile and Maddalena (also ambiguously tender-hearted). When Rigoletto says "Pari siamo", he could be expressing the motto of the whole work: the beautiful and the ugly can be equally good, equally evil.

Date of release

1981-12-15

Runtime

2h 5m

Director

John Dexter, Brian Large

Casting

• Louis Quilico — Rigoletto
• Luciano Pavarotti — Il Duca di Mantua
• Christiane Eda-Pierre — Gilda
• Ara Berberian — Sparafucile
• Isola Jones — Maddalena
• John Darrenkamp — Marullo
• Batyah Godfrey — Giovanna
• Betsy Norden — Countess Ceprano
• Norman Andersson — Count Ceprano
• Charles Anthony — Borsa
• Richard J. Clark — Monterone
• James Levine — Self - Conductor

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