jan 1, 1851 - Rigoletto

Description:

Rigoletto is one of Verdi's most Shakespearean works, despite its soruce in Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse (The King Amuses Himself). Verdi immediately saw in it an ideally Shakespearean subject, because the title character, the hunchback Rigoletto was at once the tragic victim and court jester by trade. "Le Roi s'amuse," Verdi wrote to Piave, "is the greatest subject and perhaps the greatest drama of modern times. Triboulet is a creation worthy of Shakespeare!! What is Ernani next to him?!! This is a subject that cannot fail." Although Verdi had high hopes, Hugo's play had been a complete flop at its one and only performance in 1832, when the French censor condemned it for portraying a French king as a philanderer. (As a precatution against Italian censors, in Piave's libretto the royal rake is demoted to the level of a duke, the locale moved to Mantua, and the action set in the sixteenth century.)

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