 As was typical of his work with Francesco Maria Piave, Giuseppe Verdi was deeply involved in the writing of the libretto of Rigoletto. Not only did Verdi choose the subject matter and literary source of the opera (Victor Hugo’s play Le Roi s’amuse), he also demanded that Piave follow the original as closely as possible and made suggestions about the libretto’s dramatic structure and versification. Close collaborations between composers and librettists were not unusual in the mid-nineteenth century. However, that between Verdi and Piave, in which the opinion and desires of the composer almost entirely guided the creation of the librettist, was of a new kind. Verdi’s urge to manage the libretto continued throughout his life, and his working method was adopted by the composers of the following generation. Puccini, for example, employed two librettists in creating La bohème: Luigi Illica (who fleshed out the basic plot suggested by the composer) and Giuseppe Giacosa (who turned Illica’s prose drama into verse).
Verdi did delegate one troublesome aspect to Piave: censorship. In his instructions, Verdi urged the librettist to contact the appropriate individuals in Venice to ensure that the local authorities would not reject the subject of the opera. Throughout the early part of Verdi’s career, the libretti of works performed in Italian opera houses were carefully scrutinized for their potentially subversive political messages and anti-clerical sentiments. The severity of censorship varied from region to region; typically artists fared better in the Austrian-controlled northern provinces that included Milan, Florence, and Venice than in the south. Nevertheless, the pan-European political turmoil of 1848, during which Venice proclaimed a short-lived independence from the Austrian Empire, made the authorities there nervous. Furthermore, Hugo’s original play had been banned by the French government after one performance in 1832 on the grounds of immorality and defamation of the monarch. French censors found the unflattering portrayal of a historic king, Francis I, and the jester’s open antagonism toward the courtiers problematic.
 To Verdi’s surprise and despite Piave’s reassurances, the Venetian censor unexpectedly rejected the initial version of the libretto. The management of the Teatro La Fenice, which was to produce the opera, conveyed to Verdi the censor’s suggestions for alteration which included softening the king’s debauched behavior and eliminating the jester’s physical deformities. Verdi reacted vehemently to these proposed changes claiming that the logic of the opera rested entirely on the sovereign’s being an unapologetic libertine. On the point of the jester’s hunchback, he maintained that he found the representation of a character who is “externally deformed and ridiculous but internally passionate and full of love” compelling precisely because of this juxtaposition. After further exchanges, a compromise was struck between the composer and the theater management. The setting was transferred from Francis I’s Paris to sixteenth-century Mantua ruled by an unnamed duke while other characters’ names were Italianized accordingly. A problematic scene in Act II of Hugo’s original that made the monarch’s sexual transgression against the jester’s daughter all too apparent was eliminated entirely. Despite these concessions, Verdi was able to retain many of the physical and moral attributes of the characters he found to be crucial in Hugo’s play.
Although the censors in Italy generally had little to say about the music itself, Verdi’s decision to adhere closely to Hugo’s dramatic conception did influence the unusual musical characterization of the protagonists of the opera. The dramatic focus of the opera rests not on a tenor lead or on a prima donna but on a malicious yet not entirely unfeeling baritone role. This contradictory nature of Rigoletto is reflected musically in the mixture of the comic and dramatic styles that Verdi provides for him. On the other hand, the innocence and naïveté of Gilda comes through in Act I in her limited vocal presence, uncharacteristic for a leading soprano. Rather than providing a full-blown entrance aria for Gilda, Verdi introduces the character with a succession of duets, first with Rigoletto and then with the Duke. Gilda has a brief moment to shine in her aria “Caro nome che il mio cor,” but she is rudely interrupted by the entrance of the courtiers on stage at the number’s conclusion.
 Oddly, the music Verdi wrote for the Duke is characteristic of a romantic tenor lead, lyrical and elegant as in “Parmi veder le lagrime” or light-hearted as in “La donna è mobile,” but in both cases extremely pleasing. That the obvious villain of the opera should have the most enjoyable music mirrors the contradiction of Rigoletto that so fascinated Verdi. In fact, when the opera was finally premièred in March 1851, “La donna è mobile” was the aria that immediately captured the attention of the audience rather than the music of Rigoletto or Gilda. According to one account, Verdi was well aware of the aria’s potential success and closely guarded it from being heard outside of the theater before the première. In this respect, too, Verdi clearly had his way.
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