Rigoletto
1981The 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.
Acted in
Louis Quilico
as Rigoletto
Luciano Pavarotti
as Il Duca di Mantua
Christiane Eda-Pierre
as Gilda
Ara Berberian
as Sparafucile
Isola Jones
as Maddalena
John Darrenkamp
as Marullo
Batyah Godfrey
as Giovanna
Betsy Norden
as Countess Ceprano
Norman Andersson
as Count Ceprano
Charles Anthony
as Borsa
Richard J. Clark
as Monterone
James Levine
as Self - Conductor
Nadyne Brewer
as A page
Paul de Paola
as Chief guard
MET Orchestra
