✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper


Sign up by Email or Facebook.

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we sent newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Turning tips into memories

Get started Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Kids
  • Benefits
  • Membership
  • Get Started
  • Membership
  • Benefits
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Opera

Verdi's Rigoletto review ★★★★★, Royal Opera House

14 Dec 17 – 16 Jan 18, nine performances, one at 12PM

Ridicule and revenge prove a fatal combination when an innocent girl is seduced by a reckless and powerful rake

By Claudia Pritchard on 15/12/2017

Gilda overhears her betrayal in Rigoletto. Photo: Mark Douet
Gilda overhears her betrayal in Rigoletto. Photo: Mark Douet
Verdi's Rigoletto review , Royal Opera House 4 Verdi's Rigoletto review , Royal Opera House Claudia Pritchard
My new young friend in the foyer, going to see Rigoletto for the first time, summed it up perfectly: the music sounds so joyous, how can it be about so many vices?


TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox
Lust, lies and loss are at the heart of Verdi's great opera; stupendous music – rollercoaster melodies and dizzying orchestration – are its soul. Director David McVicar in his 2001 production, revived at the Royal Opera House, does not flinch from showing the plain nastiness of the debauched court of Mantua, which runs on a tide of joyless sex and mirthless tomfoolery.


The court looks sumptuous enough with its tumbling silks and satins in Old Master colours and glam-rock hair-dos (design by Michael Vale, costumes by Tanya McCallin, lighting by Paule Constable), but it's a moral vacuum. The hangers-on disappear into a cave-like hole, like vermin.


In contrast, the West Side Story chicken wire shack that is home to innocent Gilda, who has the misfortune to fall for the Duke of Mantua (at church, of all places), is a place of purity, until the libertine bribes his way in. The link between the two homes is the Duke's deformed court jester who gives the opera its title, and who is Gilda's protective father.


But in this deceptively complex opera, the father who is stricken when his daughter is abducted is no saint: he colluded earlier over the ill-treatment of another man's daughter. And he will pay an assassin to take the life the Duke. The emotional layering of the Greek baritone Dimitri Platanias as Rigoletto is not entirely convincing, but the singing is mighty from inside his cockroach carapace.


(The Russian Dmitri Hvorostovsky, who died last month was initially cast for some performances as Rigoletto; performances are dedicated to his memory, Royal Opera House director of opera Oliver Mears told the Covent Garden first night audience, which adored him.)


The American star tenor Michael Fabiano, returning, to the Royal Opera House after his triumphant Rodolfo in Puccini’s La Bohème, which opened the Covent Garden 2017/18 season, sings the Duke, with the massive and open tenor sound that only rarely makes you want for a slightly more Italianate warmth.


As Gilda, Russian soprano Sofia Fomina is a sweet-voiced caged songbird, who proves to be a fighter when the life of the man she loves is at stake. Here is one of the finest demonstrations that love is blind: she listens in to the Duke's advances on sultry Maddalena, and still does not doubt him. Her abduction, though, is slightly botched – not wanting for voice,why does she not scream the house down? Perhaps wardrobe could look out a gag.


Bulgarian mezzo-soprano Nadia Krasteva with the thrilling Italian bass Andrea Mastroni as her assassin brother Sparafucile inject into the uncluttered last act a passion somewhat wanting earlier. The whole production until this point has been slightly weighed down by spectacle; now the music breaks free. It does so too when James Rutherford's imposing vengeful father Monterone brings the court to a rare standstill.


Alexander Joel conducts the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House whose high strings slit rapier-like through Verdi's score, and the splendid male chorus is only hampered by the number of other bodies on a stage stuffed with actors; I missed that concentrated Verdian surge. But like so many of those puzzling cocktails at this time of year, this Rigoletto is a heady, moreish mix of the luscious and the bitter. Cheers!


Rigoletto is sung in Italian with English surtitles. Some roles are recast in later performances. The opera is relayed live to cinemas on 16 January: click here for more details. It is also broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 24 February.
by Claudia Pritchard

What Verdi's Rigoletto review , Royal Opera House
Where Royal Opera House, Bow Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9DD | MAP
Nearest tube Covent Garden (underground)
When 14 Dec 17 – 16 Jan 18, nine performances, one at 12PM
Price £6 - £185
Website http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/rigoletto-by-david-mcvicar



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 5 - 7 March
Things to do in London this weekend: 5 - 7 March
Bryan Cranston in Your Honor, Sky Atlantic (Photo: Sky/Showtime)
Your Honor, Sky Atlantic review
Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing (Photo: Lionsgate/Sky)
New to Netflix UK: March 2021

Editor's Picks

Michael Fabiano is in demand at opera houses worldwide. Photo: Arielle Doneson
Michael Fabiano interview: the Royal Opera House's tenor on a mission
Popular baritone Roderick Williams is to make his Covent Garden debut
Royal Opera House 2017/18: curtain up on a whole world of emotions
Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, directed by Fiona Shaw, returns to English National Opera in 2018. Photo: Robbie Jack
English National Opera, 2017/18: the operas, singers and must-sees
    An all-singing, all-dancing version of the Cleopatra and Julius Caesar romance, Handel's Giulio Cesare, returns to Glyndebourne. Photo: Mike Hoban
Glyndebourne Festival Opera 2018
Lauren Fagan sings the role of society hostess Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata at Opera Holland Park. Photo: Victoria Cadisch
Opera Holland Park 2018: book now for the best seats
Madama Butterfly opens Glyndebourne's 2018 season. Photo: Clive Barda
Best Opera 2018: divas, dramas and dates for your diary
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

We recommend nearby

  • Sushisamba, Covent Garden

    Housed at the Opera Terrace, within the central Market Building, Sushisamba comes to Covent Garden. This is its second location in London after opening at Heron tower in Liverpool street. Expect Japanese-Brazilian-Peruvian fusion sushi and a truly unique culinary experience.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • Mamie's

    Make everyday pancake day. Serving exquisite savoury and sweet crêpes, from childhood favourites like lemon and sugar to more sophisticated combinations, Mamie's may well be the home of the best pancakes and galettes in London.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • The Barbary

    The team behind Soho's Palomar bring exquisite modern Jerusalem feasting and ample atmosphere to Covent Garden . Voted as Time Out's top London restaurant in September 2017, The Barbary is inspired by the food and flavours that span the Atlantic Coast.

    Read more...
    Book Map

Royal Opera House

Verdi

Michael Fabiano

You might like

  • Spectacular dancing contrasts with intrigue and combat in this lavish production of Verdi's opera. Photo: Bill Cooper

    Verdi's Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Royal Opera House

  • There is something rotten in Seville in La Tragédie de Carmen. Image: AKA

    Bizet's La Tragédie de Carmen, Wilton's Music Hall

  • Lauren Fagan as Violetta returns to her old, partying life with Nicholas Garrett. Photo: Robert Workman

    Verdi's La Traviata review ★★★★★, Opera Holland Park

  • Opera Passion, Power and Politics installation image (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

    Opera: Passion, Power and Politics ★★★★★

  • Claudia Boyle works flat out as Violetta in La Traviata. Photo: Catherine Ashmore

    Verdi's La Traviata review ★★★★★, English National Opera, Coliseum

  • A woman's work is never done in Eugene Onegin at the Arcola. Photo: Andreas Grieger

    Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin review ★★★★★, OperaUpClose, Arcola



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • What is Culture Whisper membership
  • Corporate membership
  • Give a gift membership
  • Retrieve a gift membership
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×