Rigoletto | Opéra national de Nancy-Lorraine

How could a jester ever make a King tremble? Above all, monsters reveal the monstrosity of the societies that engender them. Thus the July Monarchy could not tolerate the mirror held up to it by Le Roi s'amuse: the day after the premiere on 22 November 1832, the censors sealed the fate of Victor Hugo's tragedy.

Twenty years later, Verdi saw in Triboulet's antics a theatre worthy of Shakespeare and set about turning it into an opera. With Rigoletto, which would become the first part of his popular trilogy, the composer accomplished his revolution: bel canto yielded to the necessities of drama. In the dismal night of Mantua, song expresses the grace and the ugliness, the sublime and the absurdity of this accursed jester who wants to save his daughter and ultimately kills her.

Recognising all the force of a dance of death in this music, Richard Brunel sets his staging within the strict and hierarchical framework of a ballet - a place of excellence and rivalry - he replaces the deformed body of the jester with the invisible violence of normalized, carefully selected and mutilated bodies. Never stealing the drama from the eyes of this micro-society, he endeavours to reconstruct a story of revenge, from repression to the final deed.

The performance on Sunday June 27 at 3 p.m. offers a Sunday workshop.

Duration
2h20 with interval
performed in Italian with surtitles

Conference
1 hour before the start of the performance (free, upon presentation of ticket)

Rigoletto, opera in three acts
Performed at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, March 11, 1851

New production Opéra national de Lorraine

Coproduction Opéra de Rouen Normandie, Opéra de Toulon, Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg

Libretto
Francesco Maria Piave, d’après la pièce de Victor Hugo, Le Roi s’amuse

Music
Giuseppe Verdi

Conductor

Alexander Joel

Lorraine National Opera Orchestra

Choirmaster