Word: gilda
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...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...
...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...
Schuppert's voice initially seemed to have a shade too much vibrato and a touch of shrillness in the upper notes. Fortunately, as the show went on, she exhibited an excellent technique and impressive range which were put to especially effective use in Gilda's virtuosic solo...
Someone came up with the less-than-brilliant idea of slapping a '50s-retro veneer on all the singers' clothes and gestures. Rigoletto in hat and coat recalls Willy Loman with a hump; Gilda sports a flaring gray poodle-skirt, a bright red cardigan sweater and ponytail tied with a matching red ribbon. The duke, when he comes a-courting, looks sublimely ridiculous in a red monogrammed vest. Even the courtship scene between the duke and Gilda is straight out of the '50s, reminiscent of that porch swing on a summer night--a worthy tradition...