Rigoletto in Vegas

Last Wednesday I saw the opera Rigoletto, by Giuseppe Verdi, at the Met. The opera is an old one but there was an interesting twist:instead of being set in the medieval town of Mantua in Italy, it was set in the 70’s town of Las Vegas, complete with cocaine, strippers, mobsters, oil sheiks, and martinis. The setting was an interesting choice considering that the story is one of decadence in the court of a lecherous duke. But despite the best efforts of the designers and stage crew, it was to no avail. The music  and the singing kept on calling you back to Italy, so that you would have to continue to remind yourself that the characters were wearing trousers instead of hoses and pinstripe suits instead of doublets. In truth, you forgot that it was supposed to be Las Vegas.

I was not terribly impressed with Hvrastovsky’s singing (who played the titular role of Rigoletto, a cruel and derisive jester who has great love for his daughter Gilda) which was poor at first and gained some power throughout the second act, reached its peak with La Dona e Mobile (which is such a masterpiece of opera arias that I would be altogether dissapointed if he did not make some effort to perform it well) and then generally declined. To be honest the only male voice that I though really hit the mark as that of the singer who played Sparafucile. What really brought down the house was the singing of Sonya Yoncheva who played Gilda. Her singing is difficult to explain with words because of its great beauty and strength. She alone gave 110% and it was her singing that made this timeless opera worth seeing