Big Cinemas Manhattan Presents London Royal Opera House's RIGOLETTO, Live in HD, 4/17

By: Apr. 04, 2012
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The London Royal Opera House production of RIGOLETTO, an opera in three acts with music by Giuseppe Verdi, will be presented live in HD through Opera in Cinema/Emerging Pictures at the Big Cinemas Manhattan Theater at 239 East 59th Street on April 17 at 2:30 p.m.

The opera stars Dimitri Platanias, Ekaterina Siurina and Vittorio Grigolo and runs 170 minutes, including one intermission. This production will be sung in Italian with English subtitles. The  libretto is written by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Le Roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo.

Rigoletto, a deformed and ridiculed court jester, aids and abets his master in the seduction of young women, mocking the women’s stricken husbands and fathers. The tables are horribly turned when the Duke of Mantua seduces Rigoletto‘s own daughter, Gilda. Driven mad with despair, Rigoletto’s solution is revenge. But, yet again, fate turns and a dark tale becomes even tragically darker before the curtain falls.

Despite its famous moments of vivacity, there is a dark oppressive musical aura to Rigoletto. Shocking for its offstage rape, onstage murder and general ambience of sexual licentiousness, when it first appeared, the 1851 tragedy based on Victor Hugo’s play “Roi s’amuse,” caused one of Verdi’s many rows with the censors before its Venetian premiere: The Military Governor of Venice denounced it (originally entitled “Il Maledizione”) for its “repulsive immorality and obscene triviality.” Yet, as Verdi’s first through- composed piece of music-theatre, it was a groundbreaking opera that went on to become one of the best known of all chorus operas.

First performed in 1851 at La Fenice in Venice, Rigoletto is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. Its opening was not without controversy: because of its sexual licentiousness, the Military Governor of Venice denounced it (originally entitled “ Il Maledizione”) for its “repulsive immorality and obscene triviality.” Verdi‘s famous score is loved for its melody and drama, yet has a dark, oppressive musical aura.

David McVicar's immensely popular period costume production brings the 15th-century court of Mantua alive: its womanizing Duke; Rigoletto, the court jester bent on revenge; and Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter, both loved and destroyed by the Duke. A drama of passionate love and hate, Rigoletto is justly one of the best-known of all great chorus operas. The score is much loved for such tuneful numbers as “La donna e mobile” sung by the carefree Duke, the beautiful and virtuosic “Caro nome” from the innocent Gilda, and a wonderful quartet that blends the voices together just as complexly as the strands of the plot are entangled.

With its Opera in Cinema and Ballet in Cinema programs, Emerging Pictures leads in providing comprehensive alternative arts programming to American audiences. Other live and encore captured live performances this season include operas by Puccini and Verdi performed at London’s Royal Opera House and the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona. There is also a full complement of LIVE HD simulcast ballet performances from Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater and London’s Royal Ballet. All are on full-size movie screens.



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