Rigoletto - Teatro del Maggio, Florence

What you will find

EVENT NAME: Rigoletto

EVENT PLACE: Great Hall of the Teatro del Maggio in Florence

EVENT DATE: from 16 to 23 February

EVENT TICKETS: https://www.maggiofiorentino.com/calendario/2025/02

EVENT DESCRIPTION:

The staging of Verdi's masterpiece returns to the Teatro del Maggio, directed by Davide Livermore and maestro Stefano Ranzani on the podium. In April 1850 Verdi signed a contract with the Teatro La Fenice in Venice for a new opera. The subject that the composer proposed to the librettist Francesco Maria Piave was Le Roi s'amuse, the historical drama by Victor Hugo performed at the Comédie-Française in 1832 and censored for having portrayed the monarchy in its worst vices. The choice was dangerous and Verdi knew it. In fact, the Venetian censors initially did not accept the master's proposal, judging the subject "of repugnant immorality and dark triviality". What annoyed the censors was the element of the curse, which for Verdi was the driving force behind the whole action as well as the first title he thought of for the opera. After a long debate, a compromise was reached; the action was moved in time and space, the king of France was demoted to duke of Mantua and the opera was titled with the protagonist's name: Rigoletto.

The first title of the so-called 'popular trilogy', Rigoletto made its successful debut on 11 March 1851, marking a decisive turning point in the operatic panorama of the time. For the first time, the main role was entrusted to a character of humble origins, unhappy and deformed. A man with a tormented personality, Rigoletto was as cynical and ruthless in his role as jester as he was loving and passionate in that of father. Inevitably marked by that curse that accompanied him from the beginning of the opera, Rigoletto would lose everything, even his most cherished possession, remaining crushed by the weight of a destiny from which he could not escape.

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