A Singer’s Guide to Rigoletto
Recently, as the reaction of my body to the fractured vertebra in 2018/19, and 25 years suffering from ankylosing spondylitis, has been to bend the top of my spine quite dramatically into a somewhat hunched position, I have been musing that it was a pity that I wasn’t a Verdi baritone, since I could have sung Rigoletto without putting on a prosthetic hunch! This has led me on to thinking about that wonderful early Verdi masterpiece, ‘Rigoletto’, which was such an important part of my early career, and I thought it might be interesting to look a little closer at it, from a historical and also a singer’s point of view.
I was lucky enough, in the 80s and early 90s, to appear in multiple performances of two great productions of ‘Rigoletto’, that of David Alden for Scottish Opera and the famous Jonathan Miller production for ENO, when that fine company was known for fantastic singing and acting, and not for mismanagement and political shenanigans. I’ll take a look at those productions later, but let’s find out about how it came to be written in the first place.
I was reviewing a concert recently in which the main work was Beethoven’s wonderful Seventh Symphony, and, perusing the programme, I noticed a coincidence which I had forgotten about. The same year that Beethoven premiered his symphony, 1813, two towering geniuses of our art form were born, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, hundreds of miles apart but only separated by six months. This mirrored the other natal coincidence of Bach and Handel being born within a month of each other 100 miles apart!
Verdi was born near Busseto, in the Province of Parma, which had recently become a part of the First French Empire, ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte. His parents were described as “innkeeper and spinner”, from families of small landowners and traders, and were comfortably off, although in later life, Verdi liked to paint his childhood as a struggle with poverty, and a heroic personal achievement of triumph against the odds. This titanic myth was largely fictional, but Verdi wanted to create a back story to fit his importance in Italian history, both political and musical.
Whatever his means, his musical prowess was noticed very early on, and after organ lessons, he became the official paid organist of his local church at the age of 8! He was enrolled at an upper school for boys in Busseto at the age of ten, and had a formal education, again making a nonsense of his claim to have been from a family of illiterate peasants. He was already composing by his early teens, and it was clear that he was going to be a musician of some sort. Studying privately himself and surviving by teaching piano, he drifted towards Milan, making friends and going to La Scala to see the top singers of the day, like Maria Malibran. At the age of 22, he became director of the Busseto School of Music, and began to concentrate on composition. After early setbacks, he hit the jackpot with ‘Nabucco’, and it is fair to say that his career was made. He was a canny businessman, and negotiated excellent contracts, which allowed him to buy land near his parents, and eventually to build the Villa Verdi in Sant ’Agata near Busseto.
Various ups and downs in his career occurred, and his relationship with the Teatro Alla Scala in Milan was uncomfortable, but by 1850 he was famous enough to receive a commission from the Teatro La Fenice in Venice for what became ‘Rigoletto’, which opened in 1851, and proved a huge success.
Victor Hugo’s play, ‘Le Roi s’amuse’ opened on 22nd November 1832, but was banned after one performance. The depiction of King Francis I of France as a libertine disturbed the censors, who imagined that the play referred to King Louis Philippe, recently crowned after the abdication of his cousin, Charles X. The ban lasted for 50 years in France, long after ‘Rigoletto’ had its French debut in 1857, an irony not lost on many reviewers. The opera, which was planned with a libretto by Francesco Piave, a frequent collaborator with Verdi, was also threatened, this time by the Austrian censor. Northern Italy was now under the control of the Austrian Empire, and references to licentious kings were not acceptable. Despite pleas from the composer and the management of La Fenice, the censor, De Gorzkowski, denied consent in a letter of 1850, calling the opera a “repugnant example of immorality and obscene triviality”.
Nothing daunted, Verdi and Piave came up with a clever compromise. The king became the Duke of Mantua, from the house of Gonzaga, a house and dukedom long vanished from Italian society, and the jester Triboulet became Rigoletto (from the French rigoler, to joke). References to bedrooms were deleted, and somehow, the censor was appeased.
The opera was a triumph from the start, and quickly became popular throughout Europe. It reached London in 1853, playing at The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, and has established itself as one of Verdi’s most loved creations. Some early critics took exception to the deformed Jester and to the libertine duke, but the public adored it, and in the Duke’s final aria, ‘La donna è mobile’, Verdi had come up with a number one hit. The composer had cleverly concealed the aria from the rest of the cast and crew, forbidding anyone even to whistle or hum the tune before the first night, and by the next day people were singing it in the streets and bars of Venice! Two years later Verdi followed up the success of ‘Rigoletto’ with ‘Il Trovatore’ and ‘La Traviata’, and his fame was made certain for life. These three tragedies of his early career were the springboard from which followed the great operas of his later years, culminating in the two Shakespeare masterpieces, ‘Otello’ and ‘Falstaff’.
The plot of ‘Rigoletto’ follows very closely the plot of Hugo’s play, except that the characters and the location are changed. A party is in full swing, and the Duke is looking for a new conquest. He speaks of a beauty he has seen at church, but also decides he needs to bed the wife of one of his courtiers, Count Ceprano. His Jester, Rigoletto, suggests getting rid of Ceprano, by prison, exile or death, and all laugh indulgently, except Ceprano, obviously. The courtiers take advantage of Rigoletto’s brief absence by swearing to abduct his supposed mistress that evening, a suggestion which proves very popular, since they have all suffered the lash of the jester’s tongue yet can’t touch him due to his master’s protection.
Rigoletto returns just in time to meet the elderly Count Monterone, who has come to the court to denounce the Duke for seducing his daughter. Rigoletto steps forward, mocking the old man and laughing in his face. Monterone tries to accost the Duke, but is restrained and arrested, and this inflames him even more, and, in a passage of great drama, he curses the Duke for his seduction and Rigoletto for his mockery. The superstitious jester is horrified and cowers at the force of the curse.
We next meet Rigoletto in a dark alley where he is approached by a would-be assassin, offering his services to remove people the jester may want disposed of. He realises Rigoletto hides a woman away nearby and may want suitors “vetted”. He is refused but says he always lurks in the neighbourhood, just in case. Rigoletto, in a great aria, muses on the similarity between the two men, one using a dagger, the other a wicked tongue. Through a door in the high wall, the jester visits a young woman, who turns out to be his daughter, Gilda, kept under lock and key by her justly paranoid father. He warns her to stay vigilant and safe, but after he has left, she reveals to her maid that she has seen an attractive young man in church, and hopes he is poor and a student. The Duke conveniently enters, having bribed the maid, tells Gilda that he is a poor student, Gualtier Maldé, and that he loves her. After a rapturous duet, he leaves and she sings the famous aria ‘Caro Nome’ (dear name, Gualtier Maldé).
Rigoletto returns to the alley to discover the courtiers in the act of kidnapping Gilda, who they think is the jester’s mistress. They pretend that it is Ceprano’s wife they are abducting, give Rigoletto a mask, which is also a blindfold, and get him to hold the ladder while they go over the wall. After they leave with their captured prey, Rigoletto realises he has been duped and that it was his daughter he helped abduct. The curse has struck!
The next act takes us back to the Duke’s palace, where he laments that his new girlfriend, Gilda, has been abducted. His pain turns to joy when he discovers that the courtiers have brought her to him on a plate, so to speak, and he runs off to see her. Rigoletto appears, feigning nonchalance, but inwardly seething about the trick played on him. In another great aria, he pleads and cajoles the courtiers to give back his daughter. They in turn are even more delighted to find out who the mysterious girl is, and the jester turns on them with all his hatred and spite (‘Cortigiani, vil razza, dannata’). Monterone is led through the room on his way to prison or worse, and seeing the Duke’s portrait, he rails against the ineffectiveness of his curse. Rigoletto, however, swears that they will both be revenged, even as Gilda pleads for mercy for her lover.
The final act takes place in a sordid tavern by the river, where the assassin, Sparafucile, has used his attractive sister to lure the Duke to his supposed doom, at the instigation of Rigoletto, for the price of twenty Scudi. We hear the Duke flirting with Maddalena, the sister, singing his famous aria, ‘La Donna è mobile’ (woman is fickle – yeah right!). The jester stupidly brings Gilda with him, telling her to prepare for exile with him, dressed as a young boy. She discovers the plot and decides to sacrifice herself for her faithless lover (more stupidity). During a terrible storm, she overhears the assassin’s plan to kill the first client who enters the tavern, so in she goes to her own doom. Rigoletto returns for the body, which he is about to throw into the river when he hears the reprise of the Duke’s song. Realising his betrayal, he of course finds that the sack contains his dying daughter, and after a long drawn out final duet, she expires and Rigoletto laments the dreaded curse for the last time.
It’s a brilliant story and Verdi created a magnificent tragic opera out of it. At first, Victor Hugo was horrified to see his great play turned into what he thought was a stupid Italian melodrama, but on seeing the opera he was full of praise for the way opera can supercharge a drama, especially one which was still banned from the stage! The three main protagonists are superbly characterised – the Duke monstrous but somehow sexy and loveable, Gilda touching and sweet in her naivety and trusting nature, and, above all, Rigoletto, deformed, depraved and yet, sympathetic, as a wronged father and despised figure of fun. Why Victor Hugo should write two works depicting hunchbacked but sympathetic monsters is for the psychologists among us, but there is no denying that, in the right hands, Rigoletto can become a great tragic figure. The smaller roles of the assassin and his sister, and of course the hurler of the curse, Monterone (my role), can make a huge impact with very little to sing. The Duke has three crackers of arias, and Rigoletto has two big numbers, and of course Gilda has ‘Caro nome’, a brilliant aria of dazzling difficulty, and the bane of all casting directors’ lives. Since it is so hard but also flamboyantly good, it is a go-to aria for many auditions, and a casting director friend of mine told me that, often by the late afternoon of a day of auditions, she begins to weep as ‘Caro nome’ comes up again, especially when not sung perfectly!
It was terrific to be able to sing Monterone, as it’s ultra-dramatic, the crux of the plot, and quite short, with only two appearances, the second in particular over before you know it! The other three roles are long and difficult (and paid more) but Monterone is important enough to get a decent fee for not much work, and nearly always a review from the critics. It was my first role for ENO around my 32nd birthday, and I can still remember the excitement of walking up towards the Coliseum, seeing the great round ball atop the tower with ENO in giant letters, and thinking, “Gosh, I’ve made it, here in London’s West End, in Theatreland, at English National Opera, wee Brian Scott from Edinburgh!”
Of course, I had sung the role previously at Scottish Opera, in a terrific production by the wacky New York director, David Alden. Along with his twin, Chris, David has consistently challenged our views about opera, sometimes successfully, often unsuccessfully, but neither have ever been conventional! I worked recently with Chris at Opera North in the double bill of ‘La Vida Breve’ and ‘Gianni Schicchi ‘, the de Falla too weird, the Puccini brilliant. David’s ‘Rigoletto’, dubbed the Punk Rigoletto, due to the heavy use of chains and piercings, very up-to-date in 1979 when first seen, was a largely effective updating, shocking in many ways, but not too crazy, and it benefited from a terrific cast, including Michael Myers, John Rawnsley and a very young Rosa Mannion. My memories of singing Monterone almost exclusively revolved around the fact that, after my first hurling of the curse, I was tied up to a chandelier and winched up twenty feet above the stage for my last imprecations. There was very little time to get me fastened in and pulled up, and I was very conscious that the safety harness was fitted between my legs as my arms were being attached to the chandelier, and that any slight mistake in the harness fitting could be extremely painful. Fortunately, the stage crew in Glasgow were very professional, and I remained free to have my children a few years later. John Rawnsley, from Lancashire, and a force of nature unlike any other, was a formidable Rigoletto, a terrific actor and possessor of a truly brilliant Verdi baritone voice, rich, powerful, cajoling, weeping, condemning, commanding. Right through the range, he was in complete control of his instrument, and his interpolated high notes were thrilling in the extreme. It’s worth noting here that over the 170 years since the opera appeared in Venice, extra high notes have been added by a phalanx of star singers to make Verdi’s vocal lines even more exciting. The Duke, Gilda and Rigoletto have all had traditional optional notes added, and most audiences now await the results of these options. I have no problem with adding these notes as audiences expect them, and singers enjoy them. Riccardo Muti, the Italian conductor, tried to insist at La Scala that the singers only sang Verdi’s notes, but the public was not impressed. Some notable baritones, like Tito Gobbi, didn’t really have the extra high As, and that was OK, as their characterisations compensated for the lack, but if you have them, flaunt them, I say. Rawnsley had them, as did Mike Myers, and the public went wild.
John was the Rigoletto in the other brilliant production I sang in, Jonathan Miller’s iconic version for ENO, first seen in 1982. Sung in English, like all shows at ENO, Miller set the action in 1950s Little Italy in Manhattan, with the Duke as the “Dook”, a Mafia gangster and Rigoletto his barman and sidekick in his New York nightclub. The whole concept was brilliant from start to finish, with even the curse proving terrifying and powerful among a society recently arrived from superstitious Sicily. When the Dook puts a dime in the juke box and it plays ‘La Donna è mobile’, to which he sings along, the audience would burst into applause every night. Great casting of the other roles, with Arthur Davies and a young Susan Bullock, along with Richard van Allan, and of course, the exciting young Scottish bass, Brian Bannatyne-Scott as Monterone, meant that the show was wildly popular. I sang multiple performances over a six year period, including its last outing in 1992, except it wasn’t the last, as it kept being brought back until 2017, when it was finally put to bed.
You can still find it on DVD, although without me, as it was recorded soon after it appeared in 1982. It’s well worth the watch.
There are lots of recordings of ‘Rigoletto’ available, and I am loath to recommend one, so here are a couple to listen to: Richard Bonynge’s version from 1971 with Joan Sutherland, a very young Pavarotti and Sherrill Milnes is fabulous with superb singing. An older mono recording that I like very much is that of Angelo Questa from Turin in 1954, which features the splendid Rigoletto of Giuseppe Taddei, the elegant Duke of Ferrucio Tagliavini and the mature but splendid Gilda of Lina Pagliughi.
It is a truly great opera from a master of the art form, and I hope this has been a useful introduction to newcomers and an instructive account for cognoscenti.
