Staatsoper Unter den Linden - Giuseppe Verdi. Rigoletto

Rigoletto incites the dissolute Duke to constantly seduce and abduct beautiful women, treating their families with derision. He is then cursed before the entire court by the distraught father of a woman he has dishonoured. Rigoletto, however, hides his daughter Gilda from the shameless goings-on. Nonetheless, the Duke has his eye on her. When Gilda succumbs to the Duke’s arts of seduction, Rigoletto plans a deadly revenge. In the end, however, it is not the Duke but Gilda who falls victim to the plot. The universally known tenor hit »La donna è mobile« becomes a cynical code for failure. In Verdi’s first mature work, the trivial, the grotesque, and high pathos are all intertwined. The contrasts between garish banda music and expressive cantilena form an uncompromising masterpiece of tremendous brevity and sharpness.