Verdi’s opera Rigoletto marked the beginning of Opera Holland Park’s 2023 season last week. 

The story of a disabled jester who feels trapped in a society he despises makes for good drama. Not surprisingly Verdi saw in the court jester Rigoletto “A Creation worthy of Shakespeare”. “If I am evil – you are to blame”, Rigoletto sings but in truth society is not the only culprit. Rigoletto’s spleen hides a deep, psychological vulnerability which not only relates to his disability but to his beautiful daughter he fails to protect from the lascivious demands of the Duke of Mantua.

Stephen Gadd who played Rigoletto in Opera Holland Park’s production must have been champing at the bit to sing the meaty role at OHP after waiting three years for the covid back log to clear and for schedules to permit it. 

On the night in question Gadd was suffering a heavy cold. This mostly affected his lower register when he sang pianissimo in his heartrending duets with his daughter. It gave his voice a rawer edge which rendered him all the more vulnerable. In his more commanding passages, he recovered his beautiful full baritone. His was an intelligent, convincing and most moving performance.

Alison Langer, in the role of Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter, was on pristine form. Her virtuoso display piece Caro Nome Act 1 received thunderous applause as her high notes, ascents, trills were effortlessly delivered. However, it was during the more serious Tutte le feste al which she sang after being seduced by the Duke, which really made the audience hold its breath to appreciate her exquisite mournful soprano. 

Alessandro Scotto di Luzio as the Duke was the an effective libertine, delivering just the right lightness and coarseness in his voice to sing the chauvinistic La donn’è mobile. He was also adept, as he should be, at radically shifting gear, putting on mellifluous, charming tones, when he wished to be the lover.

Other smaller roles impressed. Simon Wilding as Sparfucile, and mezzo-soprano, Georgia Mae Bishop, as the maid Giovanna.

OHP’s production decision to set the opera circa 1920s England was a puzzling decision. In his opera Verdi used 16th century Italy as his backdrop, with all that it conjured -. prisons, abductions, torture, emphasising the terrifying world Rigoletto and his young daughter inhabited. The OHP setting was less obviously foreboding. We saw a raucous party taking place where men and women behaved badly, fooled around, stripped, exchanged lovers. The 1920s were supposed to be more enlightened times, when women were enjoying greater freedoms. And yet it soon dawns on us that the so-called independent women are those who can afford to act as they wish. Money is a formidable cushion and so is an understanding, easy-going husband. Rigoletto and Gilda, who hail from the lower classes, will fair no better in these times. So an interesting decision Cecilia Stinton (Director) and Neil Irish (Designer)

This was a polished production on every level, and I would urge Verdi lovers to get online quick for the remaining seats! 

KH

Performances left at Opera Holland : 7th,9th,15th, 17th,22nd and 24th June at 7.30pm