Who will have the last laugh when a court jester plots revenge? A father’s love and a daughter’s dishonor may end in tragedy. With ravishing melodies and riveting drama, Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto is a classic Italian opera with more twists than a bowl of fettucini.

Le Roi s’amuse, a play by the great French writer Victor Hugo, was the basis for the opera Rigoletto. The story deals with a dishonorable ruler, an unjust and unfeeling aristocracy and social injustice. When Verdi composed this opera in the 1830’s, such disrespectful portrayals of the ruling class were severely condemned.

The original title Verdi chose for his new opera was La maladezione (The Curse). Italy was occupied by Austrian troops at this time, and the Austrian officials regarded Verdi as an agitator who contributed to the anti-Austrian atmosphere. This opera, featuring the attempted murder of a crowned head, was particularly offensive to them. Piave, the librettist for the opera, was forced to change the most controversial passages, moving the action from France to Italy, and making Francis I of France a libertine duke of Mantua, an unimportant political figure. Verdi changed the title to Rigoletto, and it was, at last, presented in Venice in March of 1851 to an enthusiastic audience.

The complex quality of the characters in this opera is a big part of what makes it special and an enduring favorite. Opera frequently features mostly one-dimensional characters: good guys and bad guys! That was especially the case prior to 1850. Here, however, Verdi gives us a deformed and mean-spirited jester who is the virtual embodiment of paternal love, a virtuous heroine who is nevertheless willing to die for her black-hearted seducer, and a vicious libertine who is handsome and enticing enough to seduce several of the female characters. That kind of character complexity was a new development for opera. Rigoletto also boasts a superlative dramatic structure because dark, ghoulish scenes alternate with lavish, ornate ones. Verdi relies heavily on his melodic gift as the ultimate instrument of musical expression. In fact, in much of his music, and especially in his music for solo voices (arias), the harmony is ascetic, with the entire orchestra occasionally sounding as if it were one large accompanying instrument – a giant-sized guitar playing chords. No composer of Italian opera has managed to match Verdi's popularity, perhaps with the exception of Giacomo Puccini.

Photo courtesy Baltimore Opera Company, Stan Barouh, photographer