RIGOLETTO (Wiener Staatsoper)****

 

By Imogen 

Link: https://play.wiener-staatsoper.at/event/1c3e3dee-79a9-4114-a6f9-e497c66758d9 

Available until: 17^th March at about 6pm

Rigoletto is about an ugly old hunchback, his adopted daughter and her really bad taste in men. He’s cute and everything but I really wouldn’t bother. I mean I’ve heard of students pretending to be dukes but dukes pretending to be students? Not in this lifetime.

The music is really good. There aren’t any really romantic bits because it’s not that sort of opera but there’s lots of excitement and drama and Verdi has done a really good job of putting it into the music. Evelino Pido is the conductor and he does really well with making the music really atmospheric. There’s a big storm in the last act and he really makes the music sound like a storm.

Pierre Audi is the director and he has some good ideas but he also has some strange ideas. Like putting Sparafucile and Maddalena in a tiny little upstairs room. It’s fine for us watching at home because the camera can zoom in so the room fills the whole screen but it’s not going to be much fun for people watching in the auditorium. They’ll hardly be able to see a thing and opera isn’t cheap you know. The death scene went on a bit too and I think Gilda was a bit too active for someone who is bleeding out from an acute abdominal wound. Even if it’s physically possible for her to stand up and wave her arms about no one’s pain tolerance is that good.

I don’t think much of Christof Hetzer’s set either. It’s probably realistic for a less than affluent Mantua street in whatever time Rigoletto is set but it’s so dirty! I hope the singers are earning a lot of money because they deserve it. Gilda has this lovely white dress on and she’s lying all over the floor in it. Trust me, no girl (and probably no boy) who has a dress that nice is going to lie down in the dirt just because her boyfriend’s flirting with someone else. She might throw the dirt at the girl if she gets really mad but she’s not going to lie down in it. I bet the stagehands had fun cleaning that up.

Also Rigoletto is running around with an open shirt and Gilda doesn’t have a wrap or anything and I don’t know how they don’t freeze to death. They didn’t need to stab Gilda, they could just have left her out in the storm.

I did like the singing through. Carlos Alvarez (Rigoletto) should really button his shirt up at his age but he’s still got a good voice and he’s good at all the emotional stuff. Olga Peretyatko is vocal perfection as Gilda with soaring high notes and her low notes are good too, they’re really powerful but they still sound feminine. She seems really sweet and loving but I’m not totally sure about her motives. If she loves Rigoletto so much why would she let him go around in that ratty old shirt when she’s got such a gorgeous dress? If nothing else you’d expect her to be embarrassed by him.

Juan Diego Florez obviously has a picture in his attic. How does he manage to be that fit when he’s 48? His voice is really strong too, all smooth and mellifluous. I’m not sure I’d go for this Duke as he does fancy himself more than enough for both of us but he definitely still has something about him that makes you want to look and I’m not just talking about when he turns his back.

Ain Auger is a really creepy Sparafucile. His voice slides creepily around the low notes and you can totally believe he’s a serial killer. But he should maybe get someone new in to replace Maddalena, she’s maybe a bit older than you’d expect and she’s obviously going to be a liability if she keeps falling in love like that. Nadia Krasteva has got a really good voice though. Even on the very lowest notes you get a proper rich note and not an ugly growl.

This is maybe not the best production in the world but if you want to hear some good singers this opera is full of them.