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CHAN 3030 book cover.qxd 24/7/07 4:58 pm Page 1 Mark ELDER CHANDOS CHAN 3030(2) CHAN 3030 BOOK.qxd 24/7/07 5:09 pm Page 2 Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Rigoletto An opera in three acts AKG Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave English translation by James Fenton The English National Opera production Directed for the stage by Jonathan Miller Rigoletto .................................................................................................. John Rawnsley baritone Gilda, his daughter ........................................................................................ Helen Field soprano The ‘Duke’......................................................................................................Arthur Davies tenor Sparafucile .................................................................................................... John Tomlinson bass Maddalena, his sister ..............................................................................Jean Rigby mezzo-soprano Monterone........................................................................................ Norman Bailey bass-baritone Marullo .......................................................................................................... Alan Opie baritone Giovanna ...................................................................................... Shelagh Squires mezzo-soprano Borsa................................................................................................................ Terry Jenkins tenor Ceprano ...................................................................................................... Mark Richardson bass Ceprano’s wife..................................................................................Linda McLeod mezzo-soprano Henchman .................................................................................................... Maurice Bowen bass Secretary ...................................................................................................... Linda Rands soprano Giuseppe Verdi, c. 1850 English National Opera Orchestra and Chorus Leslie Fyson chorus master Mark Elder 3 CHAN 3030 BOOK.qxd 24/7/07 5:09 pm Page 4 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page 11 ‘Oh, dear Giovanna, guard my daughter’ 5:46 72 1 Prelude 2:34 63 Rigoletto, Gilda, Giovanna, ‘Duke’ [p. 00 Act I 12 ‘Giovanna, I should have told him’ 3:12 73 Scene One Gilda, Giovanna, ‘Duke’ 13 ‘Love is the source of life, love is our sunlight’ 5:27 74 2 ‘That pretty girl I’ve been seeing in the city’ 1:50 63 ‘Duke’, Gilda, Ceprano, Borsa, Giovanna ‘Duke’, Borsa 14 ‘Gualtier Maldè, you were the first to love me… 3 ‘If a woman should happen to catch my eye’ 2:06 63 Dearest name of my first love’ 6:20 75 ‘Duke’ Gilda, Borsa, Ceprano, Chorus, Marullo 4 ‘You’re going? That’s cruel’ 2:03 64 15 ‘I have returned. But why?’ 2:19 76 ‘Duke’, ‘Countess’, Rigoletto, Chorus Rigoletto, Borsa, Ceprano, Marullo 5 ‘It’s happened! It’s happened!’ 2:48 64 16 ‘Softly, softly we move in to get her’ 3:01 77 Marullo, Chorus, ‘Duke’, Rigoletto, Ceprano, Borsa, Courtiers All, Gilda, Chorus, Rigoletto 6 ‘I demand to see him’ 4:52 66 Monterone, ‘Duke’, Rigoletto, Borsa, Marullo, Ceprano, Courtiers TT 58:29 58 Scene Two 7 ‘The old man laid his curse on me!’ 5:10 68 Rigoletto, Sparafucile COMPACT DISC TWO Time Page 8 ‘We are equals’ 3:52 69 Rigoletto [p. 00 Act II 9 ‘Gilda! 2:03 70 1 ‘Somebody came and stole her but when?’ 2:30 78 45 Rigoletto, Gilda ‘Duke’ 10 ‘Ah, do not demand of one so sad’ 5:03 70 2 ‘Somewhere I see you weeping’ 3:055078 5:46 Rigoletto, Gilda, Giovanna ‘Duke’, All 4 5 CHAN 3030 BOOK.qxd 24/7/07 5:09 pm Page 6 COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page COMPACT DISC ONE Time Page 3 ‘We went to look for her last night together’ 2:00 78 13 ‘When first I came to talk to you’ 1:33 85 78 All, ‘Duke’ ‘Duke’, Gilda, Maddalena, Rigoletto 4 ‘The power of love is calling’ 3:13 79 14 ‘If you want a faithful lover’ 4:40 86 58 ‘Duke’, All ‘Duke’, Maddalena, Gilda, Rigoletto 5 ‘Poor little Rigoletto…’ 3:35 79 15 ‘Eighty dollars you were asking’ 2:22 87 Marullo, Rigoletto, Chorus, Ceprano, Secretary, Borsa Rigoletto, Sparafucile, ‘Duke’, Maddalena 6 ‘Filthy rabble, you liars, you cowards’ 4:32 81 16 ‘He’s such a young man, handsome and friendly’ 2:33 88 Rigoletto Maddalena, ‘Duke’, Sparafucile 7 ‘My father!’ 1:29 81 17 ‘I cannot think clearly’ 6:22 89 Gilda, Rigoletto, All Gilda, Maddalena, Sparafucile 8 ‘Speak now. They’ve left us’ 7:21 82 18 ‘Now for my vengeance, now the moment is ready’ 2:53 92 Rigoletto, Gilda Rigoletto, Sparafucile 9 ‘I’ve one thing to do here before I am finished’ 1:13 83 19 ‘He’s there, murdered, oh yes’ 2:21 93 Rigoletto, Gilda, Henchman, Monterone Rigoletto, ‘Duke’ 10 ‘Old man, you’re mistaken’ 2:12 83 20 ‘But who can be inside here?’ 2:02 93 54 Rigoletto, Gilda Rigoletto, Gilda 21 ‘It’s all my fault’ 1:29 94 [p. 00 Act III Gilda, Rigoletto 11 ‘You love him?’ 2:24 84 22 ‘Ah, soon, in Heaven’ 3:22 94 Rigoletto, Gilda, ‘Duke’, Sparafucile Gilda, Rigoletto 12 ‘Women abandon us’ 3:04 84 TT 66:18 58 ‘Duke’, Sparafucile, Rigoletto 6 7 CHAN 3030 BOOK.qxd 24/7/07 5:09 pm Page 8 When the Duke is back in his own territory passage of haunting recitative she Giuseppe Verdi: Rigoletto Verdi allows us a moment of sympathy for acknowledges that her feelings haven’t him: this hardened rake is momentarily prey changed. The Duke appears, sings his famous Rigoletto: A Timeless Drama been compared with a Shakespearean to sentiment, perhaps sentimentality, his mood ditty about fickle women – an even more Almost the most arresting aspect of all Verdi’s monologue. Once Gilda enters we sense the expressed in an energetic recitative and aria. accurate character portrait than those already mature operas is his ability to find exactly the relief of the jester at meeting his beloved But once his courtiers appear and describe heard – then flirts to elating music with the right colour and hue (what the Italians call daughter: the only joy in his otherwise bitter their misdeed to him, he reverts to type, sings seductive Maddalena, Sparafucile’s sister. He tinta), musically speaking, for each work. The life. At their meeting Verdi’s innate generosity a raffish cabaletta and rushes off to rape Gilda. begins the famous Quartet with an expansive Prelude to Rigoletto is as good an example as of spirit at last breaks through. This fleeting Rigoletto at once appears before the courtiers phrase that seems perfectly to encapsulate his any of what I mean. Its dark tints and louring moment of happiness, so memorably expressed, searching for his abducted child. Verdi catches aroused feelings, and all the while Verdi’s aspect immediately tell us of a tragic, fearsome is all-too-soon set aside by the action of the pathos of his situation in music of music manages, at one and the same time, to drama to follow, while the opening scene just Giovanna, Gilda’s companion, who is bribed sorrowful despair followed by bitter anger, encompass Maddalena’s banter, Rigoletto’s as unerringly places us in the licentious court by the Duke to acquiesce in Gilda’s downfall. then abject pity as he appeals to his bitterness and Gilda’s broken-hearted of the libidinous Duke of Mantua, agent of The Duke, disguised as Gualtier, a poor tormentors’ better side in paragraphs of searing incredulity. The Quartet is justifiably the unhappy events depicted within the work. student, declares his supposed love for Gilda in emotional power. At last his daughter appears, recognised as a number that epitomises opera’s The Duke’s opening solo immediately phrases that she – and we – find irresistible: the ruined and distressed, to tell her tale of woe in superiority to straight theatre: four emotions establishes him as a free-loving libertine while devil does indeed have the best tunes. empty, dragging phrases. Still, her love is not individually expressed at the same time and Rigoletto’s jesting, as Verdi intends, is just that Once he has departed, the infatuated girl quelled and she is horrified as Rigoletto turned by Verdi’s genius into a magnificently bit too hectic to have us believe in it – and in declares her love for the young man in a decides on revenge, his mood underlined by coordinated whole. his reaction to Monterone’s fearful curse we recitative and aria that exactly mirror her Monterone’s death-driven intervention. In this Gilda supposedly goes home, while realise his convoluted, insecure nature and deluded state of mind, yet they are so beautiful whole scene Verdi moves with uncanny Rigoletto secures his murderous intentions precarious position at court. How vividly the in themselves that once again we live Gilda’s mastery from one mood to the next in a with the assassin by means of payment; again a composer evinces these facets of his characters! own emotions and believe with her in the succession of separate numbers that coalesce mood is perfectly adumbrated, here one of The night-haunted introduction to the apparently honourable intentions of her suitor. into a convincing whole. dark, nocturnal conspiracy. Back in second scene at once conjures before us the The appearance of the music of the abducting Verdi crowns his achievement by an Sparafucile’s shack, Maddalena pleads with her saturnine world of Sparafucile, the professional courtiers may seem an anti-climax, but Verdi is inspired Act III in which the drama heads for brother to spare the handsome youth. He assassin, and also the lone world of Rigoletto surely telling us that these worthless, callous its inevitably tragic conclusion. Rigoletto refuses

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