1/ This is the gem of updated prodns: RIGOLETTO moved from 16thc Mantua to Vegas in 1960. It’s perfect: the Duke becomes (tho this is not specified in program materials) Sinatra; his principal courtiers, tho ofc retaining their libretto names) are Peter Lawford, Dean Martin,
https://twitter.com/metopera/status/1402021379524988931
2/ Sammy Davis Jr., and Sam Giancana (he’s Count Ceprano). Our star, Želko Lučić, w grand Verdi baritone voice and thick Serbian accent, says he doesn’t know much about bygone American pop culture, but adds, “They tell me I am - Don Reeekls?” A good explanation, as Rickles made
3/ as many enemies as friends w his humor that corresponds to what Rigoletto describes in his great (and, for its time, genre-busting) monologue, “Pari siamo” - “We are alike” - ie, I and that hired assassin I’ve just been talking to.
4/ Watch for his 1st encounter w that assassin. A bar, on the way home. “Quel vecchio maledivami” (“That old man cursed me”) is addressed to the barkeep. Rigoletto is not expecting to hear from the stranger on the stool next to him, but this guy turns out to be a sharply dressed
5/ thug, either a pimp or a killer. “A voi presente in uom di spada sta.” “Present b4 you is a man of the sword.” It’s Sparafucile (bass Štefan Kocán), whose license plate, as we discover later, since the final-act action involves his car, is “SPARFUC.”
Awesome.
Awesome.
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