Published on Jun 17, 2014

Rating:

Genre: NCPA

Dates: July 31 - August 3, 2014

Venue: Opera House of NCPA

Prices: 100, 280, 450, 550, 600, 680, 880

Features: A cooperative production of Italian opera master Verdi's classics Rigoletto will be stage in opera house of NCPA from July 31st to August 3rd. Maestro Leo Nucci will appear again in the Opera Festival 2014.

BRIEF INTRODUCTION

The opera Rigoletto created in 1851 is one of the most amazing works of the Italian opera master Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi. Rigoletto, together with La Traviata and Il Trovatore are considered the three masterpieces of Verdi produced in 1850s and has been always on the opera stage during the past century.

Rigoletto was adapted from Le Roi S'Amuse by the French writer Victor Hugo. Verdi strengthened the dramatic elements of the play, and expressed characters' internal changes and characteristics through skillful usage of music. Audiences have always been deeply impressed by the three major characters—the indecisive and emotional Rigoletto, the romantic, pompous, and fickle Duke, as well as the pure and kind maid Gilda, who is full of poetic fantasies. Several arias from this opera became world famous later, among which, La Donna è Mobile, with its lively rhythm and fancy tones, became a classic all over the world.

The opera represents extraordinary wholesomeness and harmony, which are very rare in Verdi's works. It symbolized the beginning of a new creation period for Verdi. Since then, his opera music has always been trying to show a colorful world of emotion interweaved with joy and pain, tears and laughter, through which Verdi represented his romanticist style.

Rigoletto, jointly created in June 2009 and presented by Teatro Regio di Parma of Italy and China National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), is a stunning part of the 1st NCPA Opera Festival. All the costumes, stage design, and scene setting for Rigoletto were authorized and instructed by Teatro Regio di Parma through "cloning of the original version". The performance, full of classicism color, strictly followed the "Parma" style Italian tradition. NCPA specially invited the 71-year-old world top baritone master Leo Nucci for the role of "Rigoletto" again, which aroused an exciting "Night of Opera" which will be another opera event that is not to be missed for the audience.

SYNOPSIS
It is a story that happens in the 16th century in Italy's Matua. The protagonist Rigoletto, ugly and hunchbacked, is a jester in the palace of the Duke of Mantua. The Duke, young and handsome, only takes pleasure from flirting with women, which evokes the courtiers' discontentment. However, Rigoletto only mocks at the courtiers' wives and daughters' misfortune and offends many people and finally gets the misfortune of losing his daughter. His daughter Gilda is innocent and beautiful. The Duke disguises himself as a poor student and secretly chases her and at last gets her love. Later, Rigoletto lures the Duke to sleep in the hotel with a beauty and hires an assassin to kill him. At dawn, he finds that it is the dying Gilda who has disguised herself as the Duke. In fact, the young girl, who loves the Duke though he does not really love her, knew the assassin plan and is willing to die for the Duke because of love.

Tickets for Verdi's Opera Rigoletto are Available now!