Word: duked
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...audio resum. Claudio Monteverdi published the music we now call the 1610 Vespers in a volume of music printed probably at his own expense and dedicated to the Pope. The year before, Monteverdi had published a volume containing his opera L'Orfeo and dedicated to the future Duke of Mantua. In that first book, he showed that he was the master of the new theatrical style and that he could weld into new shapes the musical styles he had inherited from his predecessors; and that opera has been held up as a masterpiece ever since...
Which is not to say that the story behind Rigoletto constitutes great dramatic material. Court jester to the Duke of Mantua, the hunch-backed Rigoletto makes the mistake of ridiculing Monterone, a distraught father who accuses the notorious, skirt-chasing duke of dishonoring his daughter. Monterone responds by cursing Rigoletto, praying that he may know first-hand a father's misery. Of course, the curse comes true, for the duke has already espied Rigoletto's beautiful daughter Gilda from afar. Not knowing who she is, he proceeds to make her his next conquest...
Meanwhile, the duke's courtiers conspire to abduct Gilda and carry her off to the palace. When Rigoletto finally finds his daughter again, seduced and deflowered, he swears revenge and hires a paid assassin, Sparafucile, to murder the duke at a wayside inn. As for the denouement, suffice it to say that Gilda, despite ample evidence of her lover's inconstancy, dies to save his life...but not before singing a last extended duet with her broken-hearted father...
...singers' fault--at least not musically. In the usual Lowell House tradition, most of the soloists are recruited from the New England Conservatory, classical music and choral groups around town, and the Boston Conservatory. Saturday night's cast was superb, particularly tenor Richard Munroe (the duke of Mantua, to be played by Thomas Oesterling next week) and soprano Kaja Kjestine Schuppert (Gilda...
...problems were mirrored in the male chorus, who had no better luck overcoming the blast of the orchestra and always looked somewhat out of order when coming onstage. There's a heartrending scene in Act Three, for example, in which the duke's toadies block Rigoletto's entrance to their lord's chambers, kicking the poor hunchback until his angry recriminations collapse into a pitiful plea for the return of his daughter. It's a moment that can move one to tears; yet here it looked so stagey that it failed to resonate...