By Kathryn Olsen
Utah Lyric Opera’s new production of Rigoletto may be staged in Orem’s SCERA Center for the Arts, but this avant-garde retelling convinces you that Giuseppe Verdi had Vegas in mind at the time of composition. The Verdi score and libretto by Francesco Maria Plave was based on Victor Hugo’s Le Roi s’Amuse (The King is Amusing Himself) and premiered in 1851, but we immediately understand why the director paid attention to its timelessness. Elizabeth Hansen remarks that “Rigoletto is about power without consequence, about men who abuse and have no moral judges…[and] a man struggling to navigate between the corrupt society he lives in and the love and obligation he has to his daughter.” I was familiar with the plot and music through my love of classics and my “111 Opera Pieces” album, but I had never seen the full opera staged before tonight. I was especially intrigued by the “Rat Pack-era” staging imagined by Hansen, Assistant Director Anthony Buck, and the excellent cast.
The pre-show music features such classics as “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “When I Fall In Love,” which are thematically appropriate for an opera about sinister obsessions and a young girl’s catastrophic naivete. When the curtain rose, however, we discover that the traditional pit orchestra is replaced by acclaimed accompanist, teacher, and soloist Lawrence Gee. I have heard him perform multiple times over the years, but his stamina and performance in carrying the entire show are what earned him the loudest applause of the night during curtain call. Nevertheless, he is to Rigoletto what Sam is to Casablanca and characters occasionally use his instrument as furniture or a convenient place to stash a diary or dead body.
Rigoletto (Christopher Clayton) is the titular character, but the Duke (Isaac Hurtado)is the catalyst role. Hansen describes him as “a powerful, abusive womanizer who lies, bullies, and assaults to get what he wants, especially when it comes to women.” He flirts shamelessly with everyone from the waitresses in his casino to the wife of Count Ceprano and the opening aria of the show, about how he doesn’t care which woman he targets, is crooned into a microphone to the adoration of swooning girls. It takes an extraordinary amount of arrogance and callousness to pull off this act, yet Hurtado manages to play that side of him as effectively as when he steps into the role of his besotted alter ego, “Walter Malde.” We see in him a man who has few scruples and even fewer vulnerabilities, who is both victim and villain in his own plot. He is also surrounded by sycophantic lackeys who would not be out of place at a frat house and the prank that brings the plot crashing down is done to entertain and impress him.
Hurtado’s unsuspecting love interest is Gilda, played very innocently by Jennifer Welch-Babidge. Her biography quotes an assessment of her in which her voice is accurately called “agile and beautifully projected.” She is a sheltered child who reads magazines in her spare time and sings of her love for a boy she met at church while scribbling in her diary. We are under the impression that she is a forerunner of that tween who posts endless selfies of her and her bae on Facebook. She is transformed by a harmless jape with disastrous consequences and Welch-Babidge communicates the trauma inflicted on her with subtle brilliance. At one point, we can see her rocking back and forth in mute horror while her father swears vengeance on her behalf.
Her father is a troubled character from the start. I last saw Clayton in Utah Opera’s classic farce, Die Fledermaus, where he was inspiring laughter as the bumbling prison warden. As he is a court jester in the original and the Duke’s favorite comedian in this adaptation, we expect similar hilarity until the only person who truly matters to him is threatened. He begins as a somewhat-alcoholic man who is tired of being the butt of every infantile joke, but after vicious Texan Oil Man Monterone (played by Robert Brandt in a Stetson) curses him in Act I, Clayton takes us on a journey in which Rigoletto becomes unrecognizable. His mid-opera pleas for mercy are a turning point and poignantly delivered while Clayton is on his knees and the frat boys are completely impervious to his misery.
After Rigoletto and Gilda, the most captivating duo on the stage are hit-man Sparafucile (Tyrelle Wilde) and his lady-of-the-night sister Maddalena (Natalie Easter), who seem like side-characters until the entire third act hinges on the misadventures they cause in a seedy motel. They are as believably characters in a seedy Las Vegas scheme as the bartender and the lounge pianist, but both actors switch from supporting roles to major players very effectively.
The cast as a whole interacts very naturally. In some operas, the chorus would be hanging on every word and waiting for their cue to come in, but the more minor players can be seen chatting up fellow patrons of the casino, discussing business with an associate or even just waiting on the sidelines for an invitation to dance. They all have a slightly Mad Men feel to them, as everyone takes advantage of the bartender’s services at one point or another and stressful moments are punctuated by a nicotine fix. The result is that the cast feels more like a culture than a collection of actors, and we are invited to spend a few nights in the middle of that sordid world. Carla Summers’ costume design conveys both economic levels and associations and the staging overseen by Traci Hainsworth are similarly descriptive. There is even a red light shining over the final scene to let us know the kind of location of ill-repute that we are now seeing.
I appreciated that the opening announcements forewarn the audience of both an off-stage gunshot and use of a strobe light. For any who fall into these categories who are intending to see this show during its short run, I advise you to shield your eyes whenever thunder starts to rumble. The strobing is fortunately very brief.
Overall, this is a staging in which we can completely forget that the intended era is the 16th Century and that the plot originally expects us to understand the feudal system. You won’t need to have any familiarity with it to ride this emotional roller coaster, but you will be deeply moved by the end and will probably find yourself whistling “La Donna e mobile” for days to come.
Utah Lyric Opera presents Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi. Libretto by Francesco Maria Plave. Music by Giuseppe Verdi.
The SCERA Center for the Arts, 745 State St, Orem, UT 84058
August 31-September 1, 2018 7:30 PM
Tickets: $14.50-16.50
Contact: 801-225-ARTS
Utah Lyric Opera Facebook Page
SCERA Center for the Arts Facebook Page
Rigoletto Facebook event
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