Verdi: Rigoletto

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.

• John DexterDirector
• Giuseppe VerdiOriginal Music Composer
• Brian LargeDirector
• Francesco Maria PiaveWriter

• Louis QuilicoRigoletto
• Luciano PavarottiIl Duca di Mantua
• Christiane Eda-PierreGilda
• Ara BerberianSparafucile
• Isola JonesMaddalena
• John DarrenkampMarullo
• Batyah GodfreyGiovanna
• Betsy NordenCountess Ceprano
• Norman AnderssonCount Ceprano
• Charles AnthonyBorsa
• Richard J. ClarkMonterone
• James LevineSelf - Conductor