Rigoletto is based on Victor Hugo’s play Le roi s’amuse, in which King Francis I is portrayed as a debauched womaniser. When Verdi wanted to write an opera about it, the censors demanded that the central character was not a king. So he became one of the dukes of Mantua. In juxtaposition to the many ‘dark’ elements like Rigoletto’s curse – a higher, merciless power – there are ‘lighter’ elements such as the flightiness of the promiscuous duke and the naivety of Gilda. The character tragedy Rigoletto, about people with whom we can easily identify, heralded the birth of modern Italian music drama.

© BAUS

© BAUS

© BAUS

© BAUS

Musical director
Carlo Rizzi

Stage director
Damiano Michieletto

Sets
Paolo Fantin

Costumes
Agostino Cavalca

Lighting
Alessandro Carletti

Video
Roland Horvath
Carmen Zimmermann
Reynoud Wieringa

Orkest
Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest

Koor
Koor van De Nationale Opera

Instudering
Ching-Lien Wu

Puppeteers
Meike van de Akker
Lonneke Dapiran

Il duca di Mantova
Saimir Pirgu

Rigoletto
Luca Salsi

Gilda
Lisette Oropesa

Sparafucile
Rafal Siwek

Maddalena
Annalisa Stroppa

Giovanna
Cornelia Oncioiu

Il Conte di Monterone
Carlo Cigni

Marullo
Roberto Accurso

Borsa
Airam Hernández

Il Conte di Ceprano
Tomeu Bibiloni

La Contessa di Ceprano
Esther Kuiper