Rigoletto

Giuseppe
Verdi

ACT I. Mantua, 1500s. At his palace, the Duke lightheartedly
boasts to his courtiers of amorous conquests, escorting Countess Ceprano,
his latest prize, to a private chamber as his hunchback jester, Rigoletto,
makes fun of her husband. Marullo announces that Rigoletto is suspected
of keeping a mistress, and Ceprano plots with the courtiers to punish
the hated buffoon. Attention is diverted when Monterone, an elderly
nobleman, enters to denounce the Duke for seducing his daughter. Ridiculed
by Rigoletto and placed under arrest, Monterone pronounces a curse
on both the Duke and his jester.
On his way home
that night, Rigoletto broods on Monterone's curse. Rejecting the
services offered by Sparafucile, a professional assassin, he notes
that the word can be as deadly as the dagger. Greeted by his daughter, Gilda, whom he keeps hidden from the world, he reminisces
about his late wife, then warns the governess, Giovanna, to admit no
one. But as Rigoletto leaves, the Duke slips into the garden,
tossing a purse to Giovanna to keep her quiet. The nobleman declares
his love to Gilda, who has noticed him in church. He tells her he is
a poor student named Gualtier Maldи, but at the sound of footsteps
he rushes away. Tenderly repeating his name, Gilda retires.
Meanwhile, the courtiers stop Rigoletto outside his house and ask
him to help abduct Ceprano's wife, who lives across the way. The
jester is duped into wearing a blindfold and holding a ladder
against his own garden wall. The courtiers break into his home and
carry off Gilda. Rigoletto, hearing her cry for help, tears off his
blindfold and rushes into the house, discovering only her scarf. He
remembers Monterone's curse.
ACT
II. In his palace, the Duke is distraught over the
disappearance of Gilda. When his courtiers return, saying it is they
who have taken her and that she is now in his bedchamber, he
joyfully rushes off to the conquest. Soon Rigoletto enters, warily
looking for Gilda; the courtiers bar his way, though they are
astonished to learn the girl is not his mistress but his daughter.
The jester reviles them, then embraces the disheveled Gilda as she
runs in to tell of her courtship and abduction. As Monterone is led
to the dungeon, Rigoletto vows to avenge them both.
ACT III. At night, outside Sparafucile's
run-down inn on the outskirts of town, Rigoletto and Gilda watch as the Duke flirts with the assassin's sister and accomplice,
Maddalena. Rigoletto sends his daughter off to disguise herself as a
boy for her escape to Verona, then pays Sparafucile to murder the
Duke. As a storm rages, Gilda returns to hear Maddalena persuade her
brother to kill not the Duke but the next visitor to the inn
instead. Resolving to sacrifice herself for the Duke, despite his
betrayal, Gilda enters the inn and is stabbed. Rigoletto comes back
to claim the body and gloats over the sack Sparafucile gives him,
only to hear his supposed victim singing in the distance.
Frantically cutting open the sack, he finds Gilda, who dies asking
forgiveness. Monterone's curse is fulfilled.