Opera rewiew: ‘Rigoletto’
‘Rigoletto’ gets into character
ByPeter Jacobi
September 24, 2007
There is, of course, much more to savor in the IU Opera Theater production of Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” currently on view at the Musical Arts Center, but you get what you paid for in a single scene.
The court fool, Rigoletto, has been protecting his sheltered daughter Gilda from the ugly world in which he works, in which his jibes have earned him the enmity of those who inhabit the debased court in Mantua. As revenge, the courtiers have abducted Gilda, believing her to be Rigoletto’s mistress. The desperate father comes to the palace seeking his child. In one of the most moving scenes in all of opera, he quizzes the courtiers, then denounces them, and, finally, pleads for her return.
Verdi has given the baritone who sings the title role music of great and gripping passion, but it is up to those who undertake the assignment to match the musical substance with power in performance. Let it be said that the young gentlemen playing Rigoletto in this production are fully up to the task. What’s more, they invest that scene and their entire portrayals with both sensitivity and individuality, like veterans, as if they’d been handling the role for a long while.
Jonathan Green, who sang on Friday and is scheduled to do so again on closing night this Saturday, is a bear of a fellow with a big, big voice that did more and more of his bidding as the evening progressed. By the time he reached the aforementioned tell-all moment in act two, he was that rarity in our day, a full-scale Verdi baritone. Through voice and manner, he had become the hapless fool, trapped by fears and stupidity into destroying his only love in life, his daughter.
Saturday’s Rigoletto, James Ivey (expected to sing again next Friday), spun some ear-caressing legato as part of his performance. He could also raise the volume and tension significantly when the hair-raising passages came along. As a whole, Ivey’s configuration of the part was the more restrained of the two but no less believable because one came to feel he had honestly and comprehendingly entered into the character.
Thanks to stage director Vincent Liotta, who gave style and pace to the whole of this production, their Gildas — Marie Masters and Megan Radder — dramatically supplied the necessary clueless innocence that helped guide Rigoletto to the shattering denouement of the opera’s story: her murder rather than that of the Duke. In addition, Masters and Radder featured lovely lyric soprano voices which they shared generously in key solo and ensemble moments.
Though both tenors — John Rodger on Friday and Brian Arreola on Saturday — looked and for the most acted the part of the overly amorous Duke, they both proved that here is a role which deceives. It’s far harder to fill than it would seem, sitting high and bright in the tenor range. Arreola hit those top notes with more ping than did his counterpart, whose voice tended to tighten in the upper reaches, but for both, the music at times became a stretch. Still, they added to the whole, as did a slew of singers in supporting roles, a vocal standout among them being Saturday’s Marullo, Aubrey Allicock, who commands a surprisingly beefy, resonant baritone ready for prime time.
The guest conductor, Stephen Lord, music director of Opera Theater of Saint Louis, made the pit orchestra, the IU Symphony, lustrously and spiritedly honor Verdi’s atmospheric score. He kept the soloists and choristers on their musical toes, too.
The sets, designed by the late Max Rothlisberger, were first used in 1974 and will now be retired. But they still work, due in no small way to freshening by C. David Higgins and the deft lighting of Mike Schwandt. In all, this “Rigoletto” is solid and thoroughly entertaining.
The Indiana University Jacobs School of Music would like
to thank the Herald Times for permission to republish this review.
