Rigoletto - Schedule, Program & Tickets
Rigoletto
Melodrama in three acts
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
First performance on March 11, 1851 in Venice
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 21, 2013
recommended from 14 years
approx. 2 hours 45 minutes / one break
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right
"Regarding the theatrical effect, the RIGOLETTO seems to me to be the best subject that I have set to music so far [...]. There are situations of great power, variety, temperament, pathos.” (Verdi to Antonio Somma, April 22, 1853)
With the description of the qualities of his melodramma based on Victor Hugo's successful play "Le roi s'amuse", which premiered in 1851, Verdi also names the challenges that every production of this opera has to face: RIGOLETTO is a masterpiece whose special feature is the confrontation of psychological characterization with the improbable lies in a fantastic plot. This story sounds like a romantic gothic novel: As a fool in the service of the Duke of Mantua, the misshapen Rigoletto has become the hated object of all courtiers. He indiscriminately mocks all those whom his master - a notorious womanizer - has dragged into misery. But at the same time he is afraid that his daughter Gilda could face a similar fate and therefore keeps her hidden. However, Rigoletto has to experience that his attempt to preserve his private, ideal world in the midst of an environment dominated by arbitrariness and violence is doomed to failure: Gilda is also seduced by the duke and even dies for him.
The story gains its emotional credibility through Verdi's music. Through her, RIGOLETTO becomes a tragedy that results from the meeting of three completely different people: The duke, who is a libertine on the one hand, but for whom Verdi wrote such seductive music that not only Gilda, but also the audience regularly fell under his charm he is lying; Rigoletto, who is one of those typical Verdi people who harbor the capacity for good and evil; and finally Gilda, who embodies the principles of innocence and compassion in radiant purity. In RIGOLETTO one believes above all these people and through them one understands even the most absurd coincidences of the opera's plot as inescapable fate.
This game with the effective forces of music theater also interested Jan Bosse in his first Berlin opera work. His RIGOLETTO is set in the auditorium of an opera house and, like his previous opera productions, Monteverdi's L'ORFEO and Cavalli's LA CALISTO, the boundary between audience and stage is blurred.
Subject to change.
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
First performance on March 11, 1851 in Venice
Premiered at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 21, 2013
recommended from 14 years
approx. 2 hours 45 minutes / one break
In Italian with German and English surtitles
Introduction: 45 minutes before the start of the performance in the foyer on the right
"Regarding the theatrical effect, the RIGOLETTO seems to me to be the best subject that I have set to music so far [...]. There are situations of great power, variety, temperament, pathos.” (Verdi to Antonio Somma, April 22, 1853)
With the description of the qualities of his melodramma based on Victor Hugo's successful play "Le roi s'amuse", which premiered in 1851, Verdi also names the challenges that every production of this opera has to face: RIGOLETTO is a masterpiece whose special feature is the confrontation of psychological characterization with the improbable lies in a fantastic plot. This story sounds like a romantic gothic novel: As a fool in the service of the Duke of Mantua, the misshapen Rigoletto has become the hated object of all courtiers. He indiscriminately mocks all those whom his master - a notorious womanizer - has dragged into misery. But at the same time he is afraid that his daughter Gilda could face a similar fate and therefore keeps her hidden. However, Rigoletto has to experience that his attempt to preserve his private, ideal world in the midst of an environment dominated by arbitrariness and violence is doomed to failure: Gilda is also seduced by the duke and even dies for him.
The story gains its emotional credibility through Verdi's music. Through her, RIGOLETTO becomes a tragedy that results from the meeting of three completely different people: The duke, who is a libertine on the one hand, but for whom Verdi wrote such seductive music that not only Gilda, but also the audience regularly fell under his charm he is lying; Rigoletto, who is one of those typical Verdi people who harbor the capacity for good and evil; and finally Gilda, who embodies the principles of innocence and compassion in radiant purity. In RIGOLETTO one believes above all these people and through them one understands even the most absurd coincidences of the opera's plot as inescapable fate.
This game with the effective forces of music theater also interested Jan Bosse in his first Berlin opera work. His RIGOLETTO is set in the auditorium of an opera house and, like his previous opera productions, Monteverdi's L'ORFEO and Cavalli's LA CALISTO, the boundary between audience and stage is blurred.
Subject to change.