Organization

Singer

Baritone

Robert Balonek

Rigoletto

Soprano

Susanne Burgess

Gilda

Tenor

Jeremy Brauner

The Duke of Mantua

Bass

Jeremy Galyon

Sparafucile

Contralto

Devony Smith

Maddalena

Martin Hargrove

The Count of Monterone

Conductor

Joseph Pucciatti

Boheme Opera NJ

Others

The Boheme Opera NJ Chorus

Orchestra

The Boheme Opera NJ Orchestra

Trenton

United States

Patriots Theater

Public

Approved

Rigoletto Verdi

Part of production
Boheme Opera NJ production of Rigoletto. The Cortigiani scene
Rigoletto - Robert Balonek
Conductor - Joseph Pucciatti
with the Boheme Opera Orchestra and Chorus

The King Is Not Amused
Verdi’s operatic tour de force of passion and vengeance had better luck – and life – than its source material.

Rigoletto is based on a five-act play by Victor Hugo, of The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Misérables fame, titled Le roi s’amuse (The King Amuses Himself). The king in question was the ill-regarded Francis I, who ruled France in the early 16th century. However, it was a later French king, Louise-Philippe I, whose censors shuttered and banned Hugo’s play after opening night in 1832 because they saw it as critical of the ruler – not to mention “scandalizing” society with its salacious content.

Just as his characters in Les Misérables took to the barricades, Hugo took his fight to court – and lost. Le roi s’amuse was banned in France for the next 50 years. 

Meanwhile, Rigoletto’s 1851 sparkling debut ensured its – and cemented Verdi’s – place in the operatic pantheon. And while its success owed much to the maestro’s artistic gifts, it might have owed even more to the backroom drama, political wrangling and ego stroking, and story massaging that went into ensuring that the opera could see the light of day and not suffer its dramaturgical predecessor’s fate.

An Unsettling Setting in a Troubled Time
Boheme Opera’s production of Rigoletto is firmly footed in 1930’s Europe, where fascism was on the rise and democracy was under attack. The era’s ascendant dictators – like Hitler and Mussolini – built their regimes on fear. But they couldn’t commit their atrocities without subjects willing to act on their behalf. Some followed because of that fear – to quote the 1999 movie The Mummy, “It is better to be the right hand of the devil than in his path.” Others hitched their wagons because they were as intrinsically evil as their leaders and saw opportunities for both financial and political gain – and to act unchained upon their most depraved instincts, biases, hatreds and lusts.

The Duke of Mantua, his court and all the attendant characters – including the Duke’s deformed jester, Rigoletto, and his ill-fated daughter, Gilda – are purposely placed in this setting to lay raw the emotions of fear, lust, hatred and more upon which the story of Rigoletto is based. The Duke rules by terror and cruelty. He is aided and abetted by those who both fear his wrath and see an opening to personally benefit from his actions – as well as a chance to indulge their own, and feed the Duke’s, sociopathic appetites. 

The main action of Rigoletto is set in motion by an angry father’s curse – but it comes to fruition thanks to some of the most accursed characters to ever take the operatic stage.

English

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Ensemble