Scottish Opera’s 2018/19 season is set to begin with Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto.
A revival of the 2011 production by award-winning director Matthew Richardson and designer Jon Morrell, it will open at the Theatre Royal Glasgow on October 18, before the production tours to Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Inverness.
This tragic tale of seduction and revenge, set in a dark and dangerous underworld where cruelty is rife and women are treated as playthings, tells the story of Rigoletto’s suffocating love for his daughter, Gilda.
Verdi’s 1851 masterpiece, which premiered at La Fenice in Venice, is packed with some of the best-loved music in opera, including the moving Act III quartet and ‘La donne è mobile’, in which the libertine Duke of Mantua sings of his casual disregard for women.
Rumon Gamba conducts a talented cast including internationally-acclaimed baritone Aris Argiris as Rigoletto; Lina Johnson, who garnered praise for her Gilda in Trieste in 2016; Adam Smith, the award-winning British tenor and recent Jette Parker Young Artist programme graduate David Shipley.
Former Scottish Opera Emerging Artist Sioned Gwen Davies (Eugene Onegin 2018) sings the role of Maddalena; Stephen Gadd (Flight 2018) is Count Monterone and Dingle Yandell is Count Ceprano. They are joined by Scottish Opera Emerging Artists Alexey Gusev (Eugene Onegin 2018), Lucy Anderson and Bethan Langford.
Matthew Richardson, who directed 2016’s critically-acclaimed The Devil Inside, will also direct Scottish Opera’s newly commissioned work Anthropocene by composer Stuart MacRae and librettist Louise Welsh, which has its world premiere next January. Joining Matthew’s creative team for Rigoletto are Robert B. Dickson, who will revive the original lighting designs by Tony Rabbit, and Choreographer Kally-Lloyd Jones (Grace Notes 2018).
Matthew Richardson said: ‘Rigoletto is one of Verdi’s most vivid and exciting operas. It moves at a fast pace and this production aims to bring out the helter-skelter of its emotional highs and lows. I’m looking forward to spending time with it again and with our great cast.’
Alex Reedijk, Scottish Opera general director added: ‘Rigoletto is a fascinating, high theatrical, musically thrilling and, ultimately, deeply moving opera which, in the hands of Matthew Richardson, Rumon Gamba and our marvellous cast, will be a superb night at the theatre.’
Those who wish to discover more about how the production was created can attend Rigoletto Unwrapped, one-hour tasters delving further into the show, as well as Pre-show Talks. Audience members with a visual impairment can enjoy the full opera experience at audio-described performances, which have a live commentary describing the action on stage without compromising the music.
The cast is: Aris Argiris as Rigoletto, Lina Johnson as Gilda, Adam Smith as Duke of Mantua, David Shipley as Sparafucile, Sioned Gwen Davies as Maddalena, Stephen Gadd as Count Monterone, Aled Hall as Borsa, emerging artist Alexey Gusev as Marullo, Dingle Yandell as Count Ceprano, emerging artist Lucy Anderson as Countess Ceprano, and emerging artist Bethan Langford as Giovanna.
Full details and dates can be found HERE.
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