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Verdi: Rigoletto (1981)

Directed by Brian Large, John Dexter

Overview

The opera’s dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely counterpoised: the plotting courtiers against the plotting Sparafucile and Maddalena (also ambiguously tender-hearted). When Rigoletto says “Pari siamo”, he could be expressing the motto of the whole work: the beautiful and the ugly can be equally good, equally evil.

Rated PG | Length 125 minutes

Actors

Louis Quilico | Luciano Pavarotti | Christiane Eda-Pierre | Ara Berberian | Isola Jones | John Darrenkamp | Batyah Godfrey | Betsy Norden | Norman Andersson | Charles Anthony | Richard J. Clark | James Levine | Nadyne Brewer | Paul de Paola | MET Orchestra