Review: Wait until dark

Verdi's 1851 tragedy Rigoletto is certainly a dark and menacing tale.

Nicholas Newton, Joshua Weeker, chorus
Photo by Eric Woolsey

From the ominous brass fanfares that open the prelude to Rigoletto's final despairing howl of "La maledizione" ("The old man cursed me" in this translation) it's a story of vice rewarded and virtue punished in which only the amoral Duke of Mantua lives happily ever after.

Under the direction of Bruno Ravella, the current Opera Theatre production, which runs through June 30, emphasizes the opera's darkness in literal fashion, with the men dressed mostly in black (contrasting with the brighter colors of the women) and the lighting sometimes so dim that faces are difficult to see. Mr. Ravella has shifted the action from Renaissance Mantua to Paris in the 1880s (when the play on which the opera is based, Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse, was written) and has given Rigoletto a ventriloquist's dummy to highlight (unnecessarily, in my view) the character's "schizophrenic nature."

None of this seems to add much to the drama but, except for a few moments when the dummy steals focus from baritone Roland Wood's excellent performance, it doesn't seem to do any damage either.

Roland Wood, So Young Park
Photo by Eric Woolsey

Mr. Wood's Rigoletto is powerfully sung, credibly acted, and serves as a solid foundation for this generally excellent production. This is a Rigoletto boiling with a rage and frustration that makes the character's ultimately destructive determination to punish the Duke for seducing his daughter Gilda entirely understandable-if no less appalling.

As the sociopathic Duke, tenor Joshua Weeker oozes charm from every pore. Soprano So Young Park is a heartbreaking Gilda, whose absurdly self-sacrificing nature leads to the opera's tragic conclusion, and her performance of the coloratura passages in the famous "Caro nome" aria in Act I was a real winner.

Bass-baritone Nicholas Newton's powerful voice enhances the small role of the doomed Count Monterone, whose dying curse falls heavily on Rigoletto, and bass Christian Zaremba makes an impressive OTSL debut as the ironically principled assassin Sparafucile.

Christian Zaremba, Roland Wood
Photo by Eric Woolsey

Conductor Roberto Kalb leads the St. Louis Symphony musicians in a fine, robust account of Verdi's dramatic score. Cary John Franklin's chorus sings, as always, with powerful assurance.

It can be difficult to watch Rigoletto these days, given how many contemporary Dukes we seem to have in positions of power. But maybe that's a reason to see it all by itself. "We still must negotiate how best to deal with the tyrants amongst us," writes Hannah McDermott in an essay in the program. "The opera's plot still resonates...Rigoletto's themes, tragically, endure."

Opera Theatre's Rigoletto is sung in English with projected English text and runs through June 30 at the Loretto Hilton Center on the Webster University campus.