Musical Director, Jérémie Rhorer
Rigoletto, Dalibor Jenis
Gilda, Olga Peretyatko
Duca , Liparit Avetisyan
Sparafucile, Alexander Tsymbalyuk
Maddalena, Victoria Karkacheva
Conte Monterone, Nicolas Legoux
Contessa Ceprano, Julie Robard-Gendre
Conte Ceprano, Leon Košavić
Borsa, Yu Shao
Marullo, Dominic Sedgwick
Giovanna, Ema Nikolovska
Duchesse Page, Ema Nikolovska
Musikfest Bremen Men Choir
Le Cercle de l’Harmonie & members of Jeune Orchestre Européen Hector Berlioz
Verdi’s Rigoletto, concert version
Premiered in 1851 in Venice. This Verdi opera was controversial, with many spectators believing that the subject matter disgraced the La Fenice theatre. Indeed, Verdi took on the complex role of the hunchback from Victor Hugo’s already sulphurous romantic drama Le Roi s’amuse. He entrusted this censored work to his librettist Francesco Maria Piave, and “opened up Italian opera to a degree of psychological complexity unequalled since Mozart”.
With Rigoletto, Verdi cultivated contrasts: “from the first scene of the opera, in which court dances and Monterone’s ominous imprecations collide, to the denouement, where the carefree echoes of “la donna è mobile” resound at the heart of the tragedy, radically different sound worlds are juxtaposed, confronted and even superimposed in order to crystallise the drama.” Emmanuel Reibel