Season 2015/16
Opera
Rigoletto
by Giuseppe Verdi
Rigoletto
Opera in three acts
Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave from Le Roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo
New staging
Artists
Conductor
Zubin Mehta
Director
Henning Brockhaus
Assistant director and Choreographic movements
Valentina Escobar
Scenes
Ezio Toffolutti
Costumes
Patricia Toffolutti
Light Design
Sergio Rossi
Choir Director
Lorenzo Fratini
Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Zubin Mehta
Director
Henning Brockhaus
Assistant director and Choreographic movements
Valentina Escobar
Scenes
Ezio Toffolutti
Costumes
Patricia Toffolutti
Light Design
Sergio Rossi
Choir Director
Lorenzo Fratini
Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino
Rigoletto
Vladimir Stoyanov / Ambrogio Maestri (6, 12, 18/12)
Gilda
Julia Novikova / Cristina Poulitsi (6, 12, 18/12)
Duca di Mantova
Ivan Magrì / Arturo Chacón-Cruz (6, 12, 18/12)
Sparafucile
Giorgio Giuseppini
Maddalena
Anna Malavasi
Monterone
Konstantin Gorny
Giovanna
Chiara Fracasso
Marullo
Italo Proferisce
Matteo Borsa
Luca Casalin
Conte di Ceprano
Nicolò Ceriani
Contessa di Ceprano
Sabrina Testa
Un paggio
Irene Favro
Vladimir Stoyanov / Ambrogio Maestri (6, 12, 18/12)
Gilda
Julia Novikova / Cristina Poulitsi (6, 12, 18/12)
Duca di Mantova
Ivan Magrì / Arturo Chacón-Cruz (6, 12, 18/12)
Sparafucile
Giorgio Giuseppini
Maddalena
Anna Malavasi
Monterone
Konstantin Gorny
Giovanna
Chiara Fracasso
Marullo
Italo Proferisce
Matteo Borsa
Luca Casalin
Conte di Ceprano
Nicolò Ceriani
Contessa di Ceprano
Sabrina Testa
Un paggio
Irene Favro
ACT I
Mantua, 16th century. During a ball at the palace, the Duke reveals to the courtier Matteo Borso, that he has decided to meet the beautiful girl he has seen for the past three months in church. Meanwhile he is courting the Countess of Ceprano, while the hunchbacked jester Rigoletto mocks the husbands of the women the Count is seducing. The knight Marulla reveals to the court that the jester has a lover. Then Rigoletto derides the sorrow of the Count of Monterone, whose daughter has been dishonored by the Duke, and the scene ends with the Count cursing both Rigoletto and the Duke. Distraught, the jester heads towards his home and after refusing the services offered by the assassin Sparafucile, he embraces his daughter Gilda who he has kept hidden from the world. When he leaves, the girl's nanny Giovanna lets in the Duke, now dressed as a poor student named Gualtier Maldè, who declares his love for Gilda. When the courtiers arrive set on kidnapping Gilda who they mistakenly believe is Rigoletto’s lover, she sends the young man away, thinking that her father has returned. The jester, believing that they are there to kidnap the Countess of Ceprano, offers his help realizing the deception only when he hears Gilda’s desperate cries.
ACT II
At the Palace, the courtiers tell the Duke that they have successfully kidnapped Rigoletto’s mistress, but the Duke realizes from their description of the girl that it is Gilda and he runs to find her in the room where she had been locked. The jester enters looking for his daughter and when she tells him of her plight, he swears revenge.
ACT III
Rigoletto takes Gilda to the tavern on the Mincio where the Duke is courting Sparafucile’s sister, Maddalena. Rigoletto orders his daughter to dress in man’s clothing and leave the city, then pays the assassin to kill the Duke. Instead Maddalena convinces her brother to keep the money but save the Duke, and kill in his place the first person to knock on the door. Gilda, still in love, has heard everything and decides to sacrifice her own life for her beloved. Rigoletto returns to collect the cadaver to throw it into the river and hears the Duke’s song in the distance. He then opens the sack and discovers the dying Gilda, who begs forgiveness for herself and the Duke.
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born in Le Roncole di Busseto, near Parma, on October 10, 1813. He learned the rudiments of music by playing the organ in the local parish and in 1832, thanks to the patronage of Antonio Barezzi he moved to Milan, despite not being admitted to the Conservatory. Oberto conte di San Bonifacio, his first opera, is staged with moderate success at La Scala in 1839 but it is Nabucco, three years later, that is his first great triumph. After many masterpieces, including Ernani (1844) and Macbeth(1847), between 1851 and 1853 is born the so-called "popular trilogy": Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. He reiceived important commissions from abroad: Les vêpres siciliennes (Paris, 1855), La forza del destino (St. Petersburg, 1862), Don Carlos (Paris, 1867) and Aida(Cairo, 1871). After the Requiem Mass (1874), Otello(1887) and Falstaff (1893), he died in Milan on January 27, 1901.
HENNING BROCKHAUS
A native of Plettenberg, Germany, in 1965 he graduated in languages and began his music studies at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie of Detmold where he graduated in clarinet and continued the study of composition. He continued his studies at the Freie Universität Berlin studying psychology, philosophy and science of the theater. In 1975 he met Giorgio Strehler, and later became a close associate. From 1984 to 1989 he was playwright and director at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris. Among his most acclaimed productions are Rigoletto, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, Madama Butterfly and Attila for the Macerata Opera Festival, Otello at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and Macbeth and Elektra for the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma. Lecturer at IUAV in Venice and at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Macerata, in 2004 he founded the Bottega del Teatro Musicale, the first school of musical theater. He received the Premio Abbiati from the Italian music critics for La Traviata and El Cimarrón.