Released:
1981-12-15

Overview:
The opera's dramatic structure frames and enhances the characters. Scenes of magnificence regularly alternate with scenes of darkness and squalor. From sumptuous interiors, we move to a dark street, a lonely inn. The secondary figures are astutely counterpoised: the plotting courtiers against the plotting Sparafucile and Maddalena (also ambiguously tender-hearted). When Rigoletto says "Pari siamo", he could be expressing the motto of the whole work: the beautiful and the ugly can be equally good, equally evil.

Directors:
John Dexter, Brian Large

Runtime:
2h 5min

Genre:

• Cast:
• 
  Louis Quilico
  as
  Rigoletto
• 
  Luciano Pavarotti
  as
  Il Duca di Mantua
• 
  Christiane Eda-Pierre
  as
  Gilda
• 
  Ara Berberian
  as
  Sparafucile
• 
  Isola Jones
  as
  Maddalena