Commissioned by the La Fenice theatre of Venice to compose an opera for them in 1850, Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) chose as his subject Victor Hugo’s drama “Le Roi s’amuse”. As with Hugo, the protagonists in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” live in a depraved society unheeding not only of each other, but also of each other’s needs: a ruler obsessively seeks erotic distractions from boredom without a moment’s thought for what damage he may cause, a father in distress is taunted, courtiers commit a crime unpunished, a father keeps his daughter shut up at home.

The Franco-German director David Hermann, who most recently enjoyed great success at the Ruhr Triennale, the Frankfurt opera and the Teatro Real of Madrid, dissects in this staging behaviour patterns within these chilly court circles, where any wish for freedom or love can only lead to death.


“One simply must travel to Düsseldorf to see this Rigoletto: the uncanny rightness of the performance by Rhein Opera singers makes out of Verdi’s hit opera a live event such as one may come across only very seldom”.
Armin Kaumanns, Aachener Nachrichten

 
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Giuseppe Verdi
(1813-1901)

RIGOLETTO
Opera in three acts
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave
 
Sung in Italian with German titles
 

Musikalische Leitung Wen-Pin Chien / Lukas Beikircher / Patrick Francis Chestnut
Inszenierung David Hermann
Bühne Alexander Polzin
Kostüme Cristina Nyffeler
Licht Volker Weinhart
Chorleitung Gerhard Michalski
Dramaturgie Bernhard F. Loges
 
Rigoletto Anooshah Golesorkhi / Boris Statsenko / Simon Neal
Herzog von Mantua Andrej Dunaev / Stefan Pop / Arnold Rutkowski
Gilda Valentina Farcas / Anna Virovlansky / Olesya Golovneva
Graf von Monterone Stefan Heidemann / Daniel Djambazian
Graf von Ceprano Lukasz Konieczny / Felix Rathgeber / David Jerusalem
Gräfin von Ceprano Aïsha Tümmler / Sibylle Eichhorn
Marullo Bogdan Baciu / Dmitry Lavrov
Borsa Ovidiu Purcel / Paul Stefan Onaga
Sparafucile Günes Gürle / David Jerusalem
Maddalena Katarzyna Kuncio / Sarah Ferede
Giovanna Annika Kaschenz / Nassrin Azarmi / Cornelia Berger
Henker Franz-Martin Preihs / Jwa-Kyeom Kim
Page Chieko Higashi / Victoria Demkina
Chor Chor der Deutschen Oper am Rhein
Orchester Düsseldorfer Symphoniker / Duisburger Philharmoniker