Father-daughter Romantics?

http://www.operatoday.com/content/2009/04/rigoletto_at_th.php

As Verdi draws the curtain, the audience cheers silently. All await the start of his famous Rigoletto.

To say that the libretto of this famed opera involves a “struggle for balance between beauty and evil” is to underestimate the complex series of plot that drives the storyline of Rigoletto. Rigoletto is the overdramatized version of the Duke’s jester, who strikes his inner chords in an effort to achieve harmony. Though, sorry for the audience, his rants and raves of his love for his daughter and hatred for everyone else are more similar to operatic cacophony than anything else.

The jester’s Act II aria (solo vocal melody, usually with orchestra) is so laden with emotion, it is nearly incredulous. At the heart of this aria is his declaration of “e il sol dell’anima,” a hyperbolic expression of his love toward his daughter Gilda. Call me a prude, but I found odd the relationship between Rigoletto and Gilda. It was more than just a bit disturbing. Though the widowed jester has just claim to his beloved daughter, his obsessive love seems to be his way of filling a deeper void for romantic love.

But the cast still deserves due recognition for this well-schemed, theatrical performance. Powerful voices enrapture the audience throughout, and monophonic texture toward the end (before the murder plot unfolds) is well received as a place of repose for theatergoers.

BRAVO! on the performance as a whole, negative bravo on Rigoletto’s purple prose.