CUNY Macaulay Honors College at Baruch College/Professor Bernstein

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The music was only the beginning of the wonders of Rigoletto.

Stepping onto the sidewalk bordering the Metropolitan Opera House, I gazed in wonder as the scores of people strode excitedly through the pavilion, lit crisply despite the unrelenting rain. The suits and dresses exuded class in every which way–I could just imagine the wonder of the interior.

As I walked into the building, a wall of color and glittering lights hit me. I looked around at the bustle of eager feet over the lush red carpet, following the rush towards the intricately ornamented doors. A few shuffles to the right, the left, and suddenly there I was in one of the most elegant theatres I have ever witnessed. The show hadn’t even started yet, and already the atmosphere of the Met was having a powerful effect on me.

This first thing that caught my eye in the theatre was the stage curtain. It was simply stunning; the gold thread gleamed in the soft house lights that guided me gently to my seat. The next thing that amazed me was the theatre’s accommodations for those not fluent in Italian: each seat was specially fitted with a screen with the English (or Spanish, or even German if you prefer) translations to the stage’s eminent happenings.

I was barely able to become accustomed to the theatre’s grand ambiance when the lights began to dim. Filled with anticipation, I watched as the conductor gracefully gestured to the crowd, and began to lead the orchestra in the gorgeous tones of Rigoletto’s overture, a melding of various emotional avenues through carefully delivered music. I closed my eyes in sheer enjoyment of the perfectly tuned, thoughtfully composed orchestra, taking in the consonant sounds gratefully. All too soon, though, a flash of light collided with my eyelids—and as I opened my eyes, I was met with a vibrant scene of frenzied laughter and extravagance.

The number of people on stage was difficult to ascertain—the opening scene’s fervent circulation made it hard to even attempt a head count. The true abundance of the actors was made clear though, when the piece demanded of them their voices.  A wall of sound rushed towards me, washing over my ears with its emotional grandeur and into my heart. More than once I found myself closing my eyes, appreciating the clarity and live purity of the piece’s classically trained voices. Before I had left my dorm that evening, I was certain that I would be closing my eyes out of boredom and exhaustion—but Rigoletto’s actors’ careful articulation and successfully portrayed (if not excessively portrayed) passion made it impossible to miss the show’s journey through various emotional events.

Never before had I seen such an aptly relayed expression of emotion—and what’s more, it was successful despite my inability to see the facial expressions of the performers.

The opera moved through joy, pain, love, fear, anger, and loss without so much as a hiccup. However, unlike a “feather in the wind,” I know that this night’s experience of the Metropolitan Opera House’s Rigoletto will remain with me for many years to come.

A trip to The Met is a return to familiarity for me. Some families go to every other Yankee game, some have a weekly movie night, my mother took me to dozens upon dozens of operas, and ballets. As a child I slept through the second half of Carmen, Hansel und Gretel, Madama Butterfly, Otello, Falstaff, Tosca, Manon, Faust, Il Trovatore, Romeo et Juliet, and others. In truth I used to dread trips to the velvet-walled palace. As a five year old its royal appeal was only so distracting, and as a ten year old the intermissions were never long enough. Eventually I came to not merely tolerate the performances but appreciate the music, tradition and glamour that together are opera.

I appreciated Thursday night’s production of Rigoletto. The singers fused actions and melody at a proper ratio that made the story easy to follow, and the emotions fueling the story easy to sense. The story of Rigoletto is a classic perverted love tale, complete with naïve daughter, untrustworthy lover and concerned, vengeful father. The various performers told each individual branch of the story appropriately, even well, but nothing about the show was astounding, which is what opera must be in order to be considered great. Granted, each aria was in tune, and every set change was impeccable but there was no “wow” factor that might have otherwise differentiated the production from past ones.

One specific element I particularly enjoyed was the weaving in of threads of humor throughout the performance. As a kid I never would’ve picked up the small but sharp sarcastic commentaries and sexist or sexual quips, but now I do. This additional layer of the script provided me a bit of newfound respect for the libretto of Rigoletto, which is likely the birthplace of any humor in the show. An opera must have a story, and although the story will likely be archetypal, it helps to have minor twists (like an assassin) thrown into the mix to upgrade the tale from one that’s been told to one we haven’t really heard before.

Finally Rigoletto served as a reminder of how beautiful other languages can be. I loved Margaret Garner, because its English script allowed me to focus more intently upon the performers and the staging but there remains something classic and beautiful about an Italian opera that automatically lays out a strong foundation for any production to build off of. An alluring language is that much more likely to yield an appealing performance.

Over the summer, I was helping out at a daycare when my supervisor called me out to the entrance door. I saw a man standing outside; he looked tired and worn out as if he hadn’t slept or eaten for days. My supervisor said she wasn’t able to communicate with him, and asked if I could be so kind as to try to find out what he wanted (he only spoke Spanish). I had not taken Spanish for over a year, but decided to give it a shot.

As I spoke to him in my broken Spanish, I learned that he was from Ecuador and had traveled by boat to America and had no money on him nor food, and he needed to find his friend. I felt sorry for him since he was in a foreign country for only a couple of days and had no way of contacting his friend, for he didn’t have an address nor a phone number, only a mere train stop name. I called back my supervisor and explained the situation to her, and she walked back inside and came back to the door with bananas and a Metrocard. I translated for her saying that she wished him the best and that he have a safe journey finding his friend.

As scared as I was, I knew I should do more, and I offered to walk him to the train and teach him how to get there. When we arrived at the train station, I taught him how many stops to take to get to his friend’s neighborhood and how to use the Metrocard. He looked at me with gratitude and took both of my hands, and said “Muchas gracias” multiple times. I was glad that I contributed to helping this man find his friend, and in the process, practiced my Spanish skills for a good cause.

As a first opera, Giuseppe Verdi’s 1851 classic Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera did not leave me favoring the art form. The most captivating moment was when the orchestra first let sound from the pit. This initial dose of harmony rang true to the virtue that many operas obtain through their symphonies. The rest of the spectacle was reserved for impressive projections of voice and sub-par acting. Perhaps, one of the problems with opera in general is that it needs performers who are adept in both singing and acting. This makes it difficult to deliver an aging work against modern standards, which became more demanding with time. Otherwise, it may just be today’s modern audience. In both cases time is responsible for the gradual decay of appreciation for operas.

All that I have experienced of operas are snippets in films such as Il Dolce Suono from Lucia di Lammermoor in “The Fifth Element” and Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walkure in “Apocolypse Now.” From them, I learned that operas are known for their rich vocal substance. George Gagnidze and Joshua Benaim, who performed Rigoletto and Marullo respectively, were both exceptional baritones. Their voices were clear rich in tone and comprehensible in their language. However, I found it difficult to absorb Christine Schafer’s performance as Gilda. Schafer, a soprano, hit high notes, which took my ears’ by storm, and impaired their capacity to comprehend her words. I have never heard such a pitch before in mainstream music and I realized that there must be a sacrifice of diction for tone. Understandably, it is a difficult projection, yet I was still stupefied with the unfamiliar sound and divided over her choice of forgoing verbal clarity for quality of tone. With the decline of such vocal work from television and other mediums of entertainment, I, nevertheless, appreciated Schafer’s vocal work more so for rarity then anything else, like a sight of a rare animal facing extinction. With less people acculturated to opera and ingrained with fine arts, who can blame me?

I was left to judge the acting with today’s standard as well. Since my sight was limited by my seating, I only caught a few glimpses of Gagnidze and Schafer’s facial gestures and body language with binoculars. In those moments I saw an archaic realism, if there is such a thing. It seemed like the performers were trying too hard too simulate emotion. Maybe this could have passed for acting a century ago, when acting was reserved for theater and opear, but I recognized the performers drawing verisimilitude to a high school drama club. Then again, my experiences of good acting were all in film.

Aside from the issues I mentioned in the performance itself, there were a few discrepancies in the way the symphony was written. When Rigoletto mourns over his daughter’s disgrace, I was convinced by his thunderous, yet insecure, tone but confused by the orchestra’s vibe: their sound was less mournful an disquieting than it was jolly or mellow. This could have been an effort to build tension between the two mediums, reserving the climax for the third act, but I was thrown off from the believability of the show. This of course is not an issue in the performance itself, but a detail that Verdi was responsible for.

I cannot reproach Verdi for undermining one of Rigoletto’s tragic moments because I am not qualified to evaluate his work. An audience in 1851 held him to different standards, the same standards he held himself to in producing Rigoletto. I have come to expect more then just reactionary revenge from tragic heroes. If Verdi wrote the piece today, a little bit of the psychotic, ear wrenching, audible snippets of Kubrick’s “The Shining” would provided a stronger backbone the Rigoletto’s fury. Nevertheless, my lack of experience with operas leaves me to compare it generally. This says two things: that I can’t justly evaluate his work, and that opera is still fading out of popular entertainment.

Perhaps this is not a cultural encounter in the ethnic sense of the term, but there is something about today’s youth, a difference in conscientiousness, that constitutes a culture in another sense of the term. I got on the crowded, mid-rush hour, Brooklyn-bound Q train on Union Square and took the empty seat. I looked behind me as people were still getting on, determining if there was anyone else who could use that empty seat more than I could. There was a grandmother with grocery bags, and she caught my attention. I immediately got up, only to have my seat taken by a fourteen-year-old boy who ran in front of the unknown women. There are countries where that boy would have been beaten for disrespect, or others like my own where his parents would have made sure to raise him otherwise. It makes me wonder whether my own decision to lend a seat was a consequence of my culture or whether discipline has generally been escaping the youth.

Entering the extravagant room of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, I took in all of my surroundings patiently with appreciation. The gold curtains and the golden walls complemented the red velvety seats everyone was seated in beautifully. The combination of gold and deep red reminded me of nobility, seeming to hint at Rigoletto’s opening scene in the Duke’s court where a ball taking place.

Before the curtains were raised, the chandeliers’ lights dimmed and the audience grew silent. The orchestra lured the audience in with its beautiful music. I was captured by the harmony between each set of instruments. Immediately the orchestra drew me to the edge of my seat, anticipating the curtain raise so I could not only hear more music, but also view how the opera opens up. The curtains split, and we see a group of people in fancy attire socializing and dancing about in the castle of the Duke of Mantua. I was amazed at how realistic the “castle” was, for they looked as if they were taken from an actual castle in Italy and tactfully placed onto the Metropolitan Opera stage; set and costume designer Zack Brown did an amazing job with everyone’s attire and the setting. Moments later, the Duke becomes the center of attention, appealing to as many women as he can by serenading them with his songs. His tenor voice was pleasant to listen to as he attempted to seduce Countess Ceprano with his charm and blatant feelings. Just as Rigoletto entertains the guests at the ball by mocking Monterone, Monterone in his baritone voice angrily curses both the Duke for seducing his daughter, and Rigoletto for making fun of him. By the end of scene 1, the audience is left wanting to see how the Monterone’s curse will affect Rigoletto.

The second scene opens up with a very dim lighting to represent the nighttime in a not-so-urban area of the city. We see Rigoletto hobbling across the stage, pondering about Monterone’s curse and how it would affect him. Sparafucile, a professional assassin crosses paths with Rigoletto and during their encounter, the orchestra plays ominous music when Rigoletto learns of Sparafucile’s occupation. Their conversation ends with Sparafucile chanting his name multiple times to Rigoletto; the actor playing Sparafucile impressed me with his ability to project his voice and hold a note, although it seemed to quiver a little bit, a term also known as vibrato.

Later after Rigoletto expresses his fears of the curse to his daughter, Gilda, he forbids her from ever leaving the house except to attend church. In secret, she confides in her nurse about her guilt for hiding the truth about the man he met at church, and declares her infatuation for this man. When the Duke overhears this outside of the house, he barges in declaring his love for Gilda, and persuades her that she is the only girl he loves and gives her a false name so Gilda would not know his identity. After he leaves, Gilda sings an aria alone, singing “Gualtier Maldè! Caro nome.” Near the end of her aria, she sang many high notes with an incredible ability to both hit the notes and project them through the audience.

The chemistry between actors George Gagnidze and Christine Schafer playing Rigoletto and Gilda made the acting very convincing, and made me pity Rigoletto for the curse upon him as well as his disappointment in Gilda when she revealed her secret relationship with the Duke at church. Overall, I commend Paolo Arrivabeni for his excellent conducting of the orchestra and the actors of Rigoletto for a wonderful performance.

picture found on: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/arts/music/04rigoletto.html

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.

(http://www.josephcalleja.com/media/photos.php)

As the ornate chandeliers on each side of the Metropolitan Opera ascended smoothly toward the ceiling, one could feel the audience’s eager anticipation spread throughout the room. The lights slowly dimmed, as the stage was illuminated and the orchestra prepared to begin. Finally, the curtains opened, leading the spectators into the world of Rigoletto, an opera that certainly could not have disappointed a soul.

The genuine laughter of a mirthful crowd introduced the audience to the first scene. The sound of their merriment and chortling appeared to be so authentic and true to the time period, that it allowed one to travel centuries back. The combination of the chorus’s gossiping and singing easily made their carefree and jovial energy contagious. In fact, whenever the chorus performed a song, the sweet hum of all their voices intertwining to form a melody seemed to overpower the moving effect that any solo had to offer.

Moreover, it is evident that much time and effort was put into costume design, as the costumes perfectly captured the delicate grandeur of Renaissance fashion.  Each actor’s attire also helped to highlight the essence of his character, especially when it came to the father and daughter. The elegant flow of Gilda’s ivory dress emphasized the endearing nature of her character, despite her foolishly sickening love for the duke. Meanwhile, Rigoletto’s modest attire and seemingly real hump mirrored his low status in society. This stressed his lack of power and even played a role in foreshadowing his tragic encounter with death.

The set, however, was equally, if not more striking. Interestingly, it was not the mere immensity of the structures on stage that were most impressive. Rather, it was the menacing clouds in the backdrop that truly caught one’s attention. It was almost as if one could see them moving across the sky. The threatening clouds’ realistically gray hue made one wonder when it was going to start pouring. In the third act, this question was finally answered. Though no water actually fell from the ceiling, the use of lighting to create the effect of lightning was convincing, and added to the intensifying drama of the last few scenes.

The orchestra was another critical asset to the show, which helped piece together each segment of the opera. While the intermissions threw the audience back into present day New York, the music that began every act allowed them to float on a wave of melodies that led them back into Italy in the 1500s. On the other hand, within the opera itself, the orchestra helped to accentuate the mood and flow of events. The orchestra’s effectiveness was seen most whenever it accompanied a moment of rising tension. Sometimes, the music would jump in speed, and at other times, it would rise in volume. Either way, it was able to accent the tension and anticipation that the various characters were experiencing.

As for individual performances, George Gagnidze, who played Rigoletto, certainly deserves recognition. Although he was suffering from a cold, he delivered each song with a vigor and smooth beauty one could not imagine possible coming from a sick individual. His first solo was particularly impressive, as his love and passion for Gilda seemed to pour out with every note he sang. While Gagnidze’s character ultimately falls victim to Monterone’s curse, he himself was able to overcome his own difficult circumstances, and successfully carried out his part in an opera that seemed spotless in nearly every aspect.

Photo taken by Brian Yee

As I warmed up with the girls, the tingling in my foot grew into a sharp sting. “Sara, it’s really starting to hurt,” I confided in my teammate. I continued to jog, wondering if I would actually race that day. “Maybe you shouldn’t run,” she suggested. I knew that was an option, but it was certainly not one that I was leaning towards. “You know what?” Sara continued, “Just scream out during the race if you’re in pain, and I’ll turn around to help you.”

“No!” Tamara’s voice broke in, “You are never supposed to do that.” I knew she was right. I learned this early on in my track career. During the cross-country championship in my freshman year of high school, I had a friend who was experiencing severe stomach pains during the competition. She was bent over, clutching tightly to her stomach, as if she were about to collapse at any moment. As she slowed down, I slowed down with her, but her reaction was rather unexpected. “Are you kidding?” she cried as she looked up at me, “Just go! Goooo!” Confused at first, I finally sped up, running past her through the steep hills of the concrete course.

At the time, the concept of abandoning a teammate was quite foreign to me. I was sure that Sara must have been just as bewildered to learn of this code. “Don’t worry,” I assured her, “It’s really important that you finish your race.” While the idea of leaving behind a teammate once seemed unethical, I now realize that in the competitive world of running, it’s not always wrong to go ahead.

Opera focuses on two senses that a human possesses: sight and sound. Rigoletto not only focused, but also pushed our senses to the limits with eye-popping set design, costumes that would put Queen Elizabeth’s garments to shame, and beautiful voices like no others that you have ever heard before.

“La donna è mobile; Qual piuma al vento, Muta d’accento — e di pensiero.”
The words have been stuck in my head since I have left the Metropolitan Opera a few hours ago after seeing Rigoletto. The opera featured many famous arias that have left an impression on me, but none like “La donna è mobile.“ There was a fundamental musical harmony and catchy tune to the aria. Perhaps it is due to the numerous times I have heard it in my childhood, but the catchy tune being combined with the beautiful voice of Francesco Meli evoked a unique feeling of connection to the opera. It would be unfair to say that the other arias like “Caro nome” and “Questo o quella” played a lesser role in the opera, since their presence augmented the opera in a different way – it is the combination of all these famous arias into one opera that makes Rigoletto such an astonishing performance to witness, and, more specifically, listen to. One voice in counterpoint with another, in harmonic conjunction with a third, while being bolstered by the orchestra’s music made the singing a pure delight for listeners’ ears.

The chandeliers rise up, the lights dim, and the curtains withdraw. The setting of Rigoletto starts in the castle of the Duke of Mantua. I could not believe my eyes when looking at the set design. Three-dimensional sets that fooled me into thinking they were made of genuine stone, real fire from torches used for effective illumination, and a gorgeous cloudy backdrop, which I wished was resembling our New York City weather last night, all put the viewer in the setting of the 16th century in France. The setting was only half of the visual drama going on, however. The actors had on some of the most elaborate décor and performed very dramatically to give the viewer a true understanding of what the definition of “drama” truly is: an episode that is highly turbulent and emotional.

If alluring music and fancy costumes do not impress you, the storyline of Rigoletto truly will. Rigoletto is a jester to the Duke of Mantua and during one party, where the Duke starts seducing Count Ceprano’s wife, he takes his jesting too far. Monterone, the countess’s father, shows up very dramatically at the party with the words “My voice like thunder will reach you everywhere.” He tries to denounce the duke for seducing his daughter, but instead is mocked by Rigoletto, whom is soon cursed by Monterone. Suddenly, the music gets darker and you can feel that the spookiness of this tragedy begins with Monterone’s curse.

The scene soon changes to another beautiful setting – Rigoletto’s home. Here, he meets the assassin, Sparafucile, whom he agrees to pay in exchange for having the Duke killed for the numerous times he has abused his poor jester, including the latest wrongdoing being the Duke taking a liking towards Rigoletto’s daughter. Little does Rigoletto know that his daughter’s fate will end up in the hands of this assassin. A great example of dramatic irony is presented to us immediately following Rigoletto’s ordeal with the assassin when we get to see his daughter being taken away by noblemen, and he himself helping them because it is dark and he is tricked into believing he was abducting Count Ceprano’s wife.

Like any tragedy, Rigoletto has an ending that breaks the hearts of its viewers. What piqued my interests in the final scene, however, was not the fate of Gilda, but rather the contrast that Giuseppe Verdi decided to use in his music and visual spectacles. A piccolo playing a joyful tune often accompanied the lightning on the set, and the devastating death of Gilda did not seem so horrifying with the music that was provided at the moment. It made the listener question the effectiveness of, what was supposed to be, a scary scene. However, this was one of the few examples of a dichotomy in Rigoletto that really jumped out at me, and was certainly overshadowed by the harmony and flow of the rest of the opera.

Overall, it truly was a remarkable experience to sit through this classic monumental masterpiece, which has been performed eight-hundred and fifty-one times at the Metropolitan Opera, and countless others at other opera houses around the world. It has left a strong impression on me and I hope that all the future operas and performances in my life will be of equal caliber as Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi.