RELEVANT RIGOLETTO
Verdi’s tale of vengeance evokes #metoo
If there ever was an opera to show the kind of abuses the #Metoo movement has made public, that opera has to be Verdi’s Rigoletto.
Indeed, the story has horrific echoes of the Harvey Weinstein allegations (or indeed, those against U.S. president Donald Trump).
There’s the Duke of Mantua — handsome, overtly masculine, rich, holding almost absolute power over his particular world. Aided and abetted by his lackeys, he seduces women, takes his pleasure, and then discards them. The opera was based on a Victor Hugo play, and not for nothing was it called “Le roi s’amuse” (The king has his fun).
Woe betide anyone who gets in the way of his appetites, as the Count Monterone discovers after the Duke has deflowered his daughter (the Duke’s lackeys all but chant “lock him up”).
Enter Rigoletto himself, the Duke’s jester, who has carefully hidden even the existence of his daughter from the Duke’s court. Inevitably, she is discovered, the lackeys get hold of her, the Duke seduces her (and she, naive as she is, believes in him).
Rigoletto determines to have revenge (these days he would shame online), but of course, revenge is a double-edged sword, and so the opera unfolds to its terrible conclusion, with the father unknowingly killing his daughter.
It is these parallels that director Robert Herriot has decided to emphasize in his new production of the opera for Edmonton Opera, which opens at the Jubilee Auditorium on Saturday (Oct. 19). Together with stage designer Camellia Koo and costume designer Deanna Finnman, he has set the opera in a kind of abstract dystopian world.
“It’s not the 16th century,” he says, “but it’s not necessarily now. It’s a harsh, brutal, steampunk world.”
Finnman has created costumes that “armour the characters against the violent world in which they live,” inspired by such cyberpunk films as Bladerunner.
For James Westman, the celebrated Canadian baritone singing the title role, this approach makes perfect sense. He points out that, if the opera is staged in all the colourful paraphernalia of its Renaissance Mantua setting, then the sheer beauty and power of the music can dissipate the message.
“For me, it’s about exposing this world,” he says. “Rigoletto is a man who just wants to protect his daughter, and that protection causes his downfall and death.”
Conductor Judith Yan, whom we heard last year conducting a fine performance of La Traviata (with Westman as the father Germont), is equally enthusiastic. She sees parallels between the bullying of the story and what young conductors sometimes have to go through.
“We’ve come far as a society,” she says, “but not far enough.”
Gilda and the Duke are being played by two singers making their debuts with Edmonton Opera. American coloratura soprano Sharleen Joynt, like so many of the younger singers appearing with Edmonton Opera, was a participant in Calgary Opera’s excellent Emerging Artist program.
She then spent a couple of years developing her skills in German opera houses, before returning to become an exciting prospect on the North American circuit. In addition to taking many of the better known coloratura roles, she has appeared in many new operas — she’ll be singing in the Canadian premiere of Jonathan Dove’s Flight with Pacific Opera in February.
Equally interesting will be the first appearance of young American tenor Matthew White (not to be confused with the fine Canadian counter-tenor of the same name).
Still in the earliest stages of his career, he has already been awarded the grand prize of the Gerda Lissner International Vocal Competition, has won first place in the Deborah Voigt International Vocal Competition and second place in the Metropolitan Opera Mid-atlantic region, and gained the grand prize in the Mario Lanza Vocal Competition.
He also plays the violin, as did Westman, who says learning the musical flexibly of that instrument is very useful in singing.
Westman is impressed by White: “He’s one of the best tenors I have heard.”
Herriot has admired how White has tackled the role of someone who is both the classic handsome tenor soloist, but is also exposed as so horrific.
Another Calgary Emerging Artist graduate, bass-baritone Aaron Dimoff, not only plays Monterone at the start of the opera, but also Sparafucile at the end — an interesting pairing of completely opposite roles, the one noble, the other a rogue. He performed in last year’s production of La Traviata and the ESO’S 2017 Elektra, and was a finalist in the 2018 Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio Competition.
Alberta-born Krysta de Silva is singing the role of Maddalena.
Westman, the veteran in the cast, is impressed that there’s such a sense of teamwork, and such strong theatrical and vocal skills among the singers in this production.
Herriot agrees: “This is a very special cast, right across the board.”
“Go and see Rigoletto for the music,” Westman says. “And then see this particular Rigoletto because it is so relevant today.”
“It’s what we will face in the future,” suggests Herriot, “unless we do something about it.”
And as for poor Rigoletto, perhaps the words of Friedrich Schiller are apposite:
“Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.”