REVIEW: Rigoletto, Opera Holland Park, London ✭✭✭✭

Tim Hochastrasser reviews Verdi's opera Rigoletto presented by Opera Holland Park as part of their 2023 season.

Stephen Gadd (Rigoletto) and Alison Langer (Gilda). Photo: Craig Fuller Rigoletto

Opera Holland Park

1 June 2023

4 Stars

Opera Holland Park Website Rigoletto is perhaps the most original of the trio of operas that mark the central axis of Verdi’s career as a composer. The predominantly dark colouring of the orchestration, the narrow focus on a father-daughter relationship, the dramatic skill with which operatic conventions such as the curse are blended and enhanced with searing psychological realism, all mark out this opera as something special. This was recognised right from its premiere in 1851, and it has never been eclipsed in the repertory.

Photo: Craig Fuller

It is a demanding task for a director to find new things to say about such a familiar and favourite work, but Cecilia Stinton does so by relocating the debauched Court of Mantua to an Oxbridge College in the era of Brideshead Revisited, very much an elite gone wrong, where authority is disrespected, and drunkenness and abuse of women is rife. This period touch is signalled to us early on as the opening dance music is played on a scratchy wind-up gramophone, a neat touch that perhaps overstays its welcome in the end, as the real orchestra enters.

Alessandro Scotto di Luzio (The Duke of Mantua) and Hadley Pedley (Maddalena). Photo: Craig Fuller

However, on the whole this interpretation is well thought-through, not merely in the characterisations and hierarchy, but also in the implications for the design of the set. This is one of those occasions where the very wide but shallow stage at Holland Park comes into its own. The long sequences of library shelves, panelled rooms, and dark-wood furniture shift flexibly from college interiors to a sleazy bar and the forestage built around the orchestra (a useful innovation of the pandemic years) emphasise the separation of Rigoletto’s private life and Gilda’s seclusion most effectively.

Photo: Craig Fuller

Lee Reynolds conducts the City of London Sinfonia with suave delicacy. The sound world of this opera could not be more different to its successor ‘Il Trovatore’. There are few moments of undiluted swagger and even the storm in the final act is more sinister and sepulchral than shattering. Spare textures and dynamic shading are crucial for capturing the air of conspiracy, deceit and blighted lives that hangs over the action. Under such a persuasive baton these effects register compellingly.

Stephen Gadd as Rigoletto. Photo: Craig Fuller

Stephen Gadd’s version of the title role commands respect despite and because of the fact that he was clearly vocally hampered. It is a warmer embodiment than usual in which we sense immediately that he is at the mercy of court culture rather than at its sarcastic cutting edge. Having him as a disabled war veteran - possibly a college porter? - rather than a hunchback reinforces that interpretation. The forcefulness of his revenge is therefore very much directed at the duke and his hangers-on, and he quickly repents of his disdain for Monterone. His remorse is conveyed with a memorably dark-hued intensity.

Alison Langer as Gilda. Photo: Craig Fuller

The stand-out performance here is from Alison Langer as Gilda. Too often she is played as an overly passive, reactive character, simply at the mercy of the men around her. This time she has much more presence right from the start, chafing at confinement and eager to develop the fresh relationship she has begun with the man who turns out to be the duke. This lends all the more poignancy to her expert delivery of the key aria ‘Caro nome’, and to her later interventions where she resists easy victimhood. The very end of the opera too offers an inspired piece of direction which has her depart through the audience rather than awkwardly revive in the sack where Rigoletto has discovered her on the verge of death.

Simon Wilding (Sparafucile) and Alison Langer (Gilda). Photo: Craig Fuller

The minor roles are admirably filled, with Sparafucile and Maddalena much more richly portrayed than is customary by Simon Wilding and Hannah Pedley. The chorus, as usual at Opera Holland Park, is in excellent voice and each of them acts out their own story most credibly. Somewhat less convincing is Alessandro Scotto di Luzio in the role of the duke, with some signs of strain in his upper register.

All in all this production is an excellent start to the season at Holland Park, combining the usual high artistic standards with a determination to find new pathways for presenting familiar materials.

Rigoletto runs until 24 June 2023