Before the title Rigoletto was added to the score, Verdi had considered two others: Le Roi s'amuse and La Malédiction. These abandoned choices alone reveal the tragic essence of the work.
The plot unfolds in the court of Mantua, where entertainment spirals into frenzy. The courtiers, torn between the intoxication of pleasure and the fear of becoming the Duke's next target, are stirred up by Rigoletto, a cruel jester who orchestrates social executions. Rigoletto himself is torn in two. On one side, the cynical jester who revels in the scorn of others; on the other, the loving but oppressive father, imprisoning his daughter Gilda in a stifling innocence. Thus, when the curse of old Monterone, humiliated and robbed by the Duke, falls, it will strike the jester. By refusing to recognize himself in this double of the wounded father, Rigoletto seals his fate and becomes the architect of his own misfortune.
Rigoletto recounts three dysfunctional loves that will all ultimately consume Gilda. There is the Duke's "fickle love" that empties words of their meaning; Rigoletto's "crushing" love that suffocates more than it protects; and finally, Gilda's "sacrificial" love, fueled by fantasies and illusions. It is this sacrifice of the romantic heroine that should be re-examined in the light of our time, questioning its excesses: what does it repair, if not the failure of a world where love is conflated with possession and death?
Melodramma in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi (1851)
Libretto Francesco Maria Piave based on Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo
Sung in Italian, surtitled in French – Editions Casa Ricordi
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