In Rigoletto, the deformed figure of the hunchbacked jester at the Mantuan court acts as a foil to his cynical and powerful master, an unscrupulous philanderer contrasted with his cruel and unforgiving fool. Rigoletto encourages and welcomes the Duke's conquests, pitilessly mocking his victims until he discovers that the Duke has abducted the one person he genuinely loves, his own daughter. As a result, the character of the court jester is transformed into a tragic figure who, in spite of his evident immorality and malice, allows us to sense the devotion he feels for his daughter and his horror at being destroyed by the same despotic world as that which he himself has helped to create.
Takarazuka Revue's Phantom based on the play by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit.
The production by Deutsche Oper Berlin achieves a beautiful balance between the stage drama and the ...
This Blu-ray is a splendid record of a creative production with terrific voices and direction, as go...
Visually this is a gripping production which captures the drama of this opera perfectly. It's downri...
Joan Sutherland's farewell performance to the operatic stage offsets this story of the St. Bartholom...
Live 2001 production from the Zurich Opera House of the classic Mozart/Da Ponte opera, with Nikolaus...
The Lyric Opera of Chicago's 1985 production of Puccini's opera, set in the late nineteenth century ...
Gustav Von Aschenbach, a passionate composer, arrives in Venice as a result of wanderlust and there ...
Jules Massanet's lyrical opera is transformed into a superb film production by Petr Weigl, shot on l...
A transfixing, rarely-seen 16mm miniature made as part of Rohrwacher's opera production of La travia...
Frantisek Filip film version of the Smetana opera.
This tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigol...
This May 2010 production of Massenet's 1910 opera "Don Quichotte" marked the opera's centenary and a...
This set has Edita Gruberova singing in top form, all her scooping cast aside, which one finds in ab...
Woody Allen's production of the Puccini comic opera at LA Opera in 2015
Inspired by one of the twentieth century's greatest novels, composer Lorin Maazel evokes Orwell's to...
Maria Callas, the world's greatest opera singer, lives the last days of her life in 1970s Paris, as ...
A film version of the famous Bizet opera, where a soldier (Don Jose) falls in love with a beautiful ...
Cio-Cio-San, a young Japanese geisha, seeks to fulfill her dreams through marriage to an American na...