Giuseppe Verdi - Rigoletto
Opéra de Lyon - 2022
Alexander Joel, Axel Ranisch, Enea Scala, Dalibor Jenis, Nina Minasyan, Stefan Cerny, Agata Schmidt, Daniele Terenzi, Grégoire Mour, Dumitru Madarasan, Roman Chabaranok, Heiko Pinkowksi
Opéra de Lyon - 23rd March 2022
Some people might not like it being played around with and transposed to a more modern period, but the fact is that even Verdi needed to revise Victor Hugo's original setting of Le Roi s'amuse and backdate Rigoletto in order to make it work for his own purposes as an opera. State censorship of course played a part in making things difficult for him, but Verdi was never one for letting that stop him and he certainly made no compromises on what mattered about the subject of Rigoletto; the abuse of power, the dangers of aligning oneself with them, and the strain this places on personal and family life. Those themes are evidently timeless.
Presented as part of their 2022 Festival season alongside the Franz Schreker rarity Irrelohe and the Bach cantatas arranged as Trauernacht, the Lyon production of Rigoletto uses an idea that is familiar to other interpretations, taking it away from the elevated context of kings or dukes behaving badly and putting it in a more relatable modern day context where the power and abuse of it is in the hands of men with money. Here, as with other mafia versions of the opera (see Jonathan Miller's famous production or indeed the Met's Las Vegas version) the Duke is a gangster, but one who presides over the tower block HLMs of Paris or even perhaps the the built-up high rises on the outskirts of suburban Lyon.
There is another level added here in Axel Ranisch's production that attempts to bring it even more into present-day reality; an on-screen movie that shows how anyone - anyone - can relate to the sentiments so powerfully expressed by Verdi in Rigoletto. The movie sequences feature "Hugo", a Verdi fan whose favourite opera is Rigoletto, and, as the overture plays, the projected scenes show him loading up a video cassette performance of an opera. He can identify personally with the plight, the fears and the loss that Rigoletto experiences in his devotion to his family, as he has had difficult experiences with his own, to the extent that he is now about to take his own life.
Most of the new approach to the opera in this production indeed takes place on the screen. Hugo was I believe also meant to be a live presence on the stage as a silent actor - inserting himself into the opera drama - but on the evening I attended Heiko Pinkowksi was indisposed and the two stage and screen stories played out in parallel rather than blended together. It still worked well, particularly effective in a couple of key scenes. The scene where Gilda asks about her mother (Act I, Scene 9 - "Fatte ch'io sappia la madre mia"), a projection shows Hugo's loss of his own wife when pregnant with their daughter. It certainly hits home the reality of what Rigoletto experiences and gives reason for his over-protectiveness of Gilda. It makes it real and it does it perfectly in the context of Verdi's score.
Elsewhere the actual stage production is less creative in its depiction of the excesses of the Duke's behaviour and in the nature of the gang members who follow, aiding and abetting in his crimes. It's a typical depiction of a street mob, a gangland mafia with an arrogant, charismatic boss. Falko Herold's set design however is superb in how effectively it captures the sense of desperation of life in the high rise banlieus. That too feeds into Gilda's hope of escape from the poverty and restrictive circumstances of her situation.
There are actually one or two individual directorial touches that also play neatly into Verdi's feel for the story. Monterone is actually killed in the first Act, and it's his ghost that appears to be being led out to execution in Act II, the bloody apparition emphasising the deep impact that the curse (la maledizione!) has had on Rigoletto's mind. Similarly, Gilda's death scene pushes the idea of self-sacrifice, as Sparfucile holds back when he removes the cloak from the unexpected late-night visitor and recognises Gilda. Or since he hasn't seen her before, he probably hesitates to kill a woman, leaving Gilda to present him with the necessary dead body by killing herself. It's effective but perhaps more so since the underlying sentiments are also mirrored in Hugo's filmed story.
It has to be said that this movie drama no more strives for realism than Verdi's melodrama, but somewhere between the on-stage action and the events played out on the screen, Ranisch's production touches on the essential qualities, the humanity and the emotional force that Verdi brings through in the fantastic score. That is played out in a exemplary fashion by Alexander Joel, standing in on this evening for an indisposed Daniele Rustioni. It's best brought out in performance however by Nina Minasyan's superb Gilda. Holding back a little only in dramatic performance, vocally at least she was outstanding, exhibiting a wonderful purity of voice and a smooth legato that reached up to those high bel canto coloratura notes with precision and often with the requisite emotion.
Enea Scala was also in very fine voice as Il Duca and provided the necessary charisma as well as bringing a bit of additional character to the Duke. The production assisted in this by introducing a Duchess who silently reprimands his actions and indiscretions, but tacitly puts up with them. Scala's delivery of the Duke's arias was excellent, filled with the swagger of one who knows he can get away with it. Dalibor Jenis was a fine Rigoletto, but aside from Leo Nucci, I have seen few who can really bring something special to this role. Stefan Cerny's Sparfucile was also well played. It may be hard to bring anything new to Rigoletto, but there is still life, truth and relevance in the work, and the Lyon production certainly got that across.
Links: Opéra de Lyon
