It is a blustery Sydney night as Opera Australia’s winter season descends upon us with a strong, traditional rendition of Verdi’s Rigoletto. It never fails to be windy at Bennelong Point, and sets an ominous tone for the audience members entering the theatre.
Inside, the fabric du jour is definitely velvet: from the pearlescent glow of the velvet costumes to the red velveteen curtain.
The opera opens with a lone man who appears to be dressing for work, only he is forgoing the tie and suit combination and instead pulling on a costume hunched back and deformed hat. The giant cubic set begins to turn and then locks into place, revealing this man’s place of employment: the court of the Duke of Mantua. The man is Rigoletto, a court jester.
Rigoletto is the story of one moment in a broken man’s life. The jester's daily occupation involves sparring with words, although he frequently offends the dukes and counts at court. And on this day his jibes lead Count Monterone to lay a curse on him. What ensues is a claustrophobic drama where Rigoletto’s public and family life collide and Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda is implicated in his political battles, as the Duke seduces the virginal Gilda for sport.
Verdi is an expert in spinning earworms for opera and it leaves many crowd members humming its tunes. Rigoletto's most famous aria is La Donna e Mobile, which will be familiar thanks to numerous pasta sauce advertisements featuring flying vegetables tossing off water droplets. However, in this context the aria functions as the calling card of the womanising Duke, and makes a cruel reappearance later in the show.
But the moment where orchestral, vocal and staging planets come into true alignment is in the energetic second act. Here the chorus of red cloaked men taunt a fallen Rigoletto, singing the aria Cortigiani, Vil Razza Dannata. The muscular strength of the orchestra dissolves into a single cello solo as Rigoletto is reduced to tears over his loss. Rigoletto, played by Giorgio Caoduro, shows his strength as a performer in his sensitive, heartfelt pianissimi.
Gilda is expertly played by Emma Matthews, in a rendition that is pleasantly and surprisingly youthful. Matthews has long been a key figure of national Australian opera, and considered an inspiration to a new generation of singers. Her repertoire illustrates an incredible dramatic range and versatility: as Lulu, with conductor Simone Young in a matching red dress, spitting out a severed tongue in Richard Mills’ The Love of the Nightingale, and then more recently flexing her comedic muscles in A Turk in Italy.
A huge amount of respect must also go to a woman who can publicly address the scandals her company has endured in the past week, then leave it all in the wings to deliver a Gilda with such girly, flirty rapture.
She transitions seamlessly into Gilda’s most famous aria, Caro Nome, and by the final cadenza, in which the orchestra stops and the vocal line becomes crowded with notes, the audience is eating out of her hand. The gentleman next to me lets out a contented murmur of approval. It is at that moment the audience is most united in their experience.
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