‘Rigoletto-Verdi’ Live Opera Screenings at NCPA

‘Rigoletto-Verdi’ Live Opera Screenings at NCPA

EFT Report, Mumbai: In a continuing bid to get the best international programming to the NCPA, a tie-up with New York’s prestigious Metropolitan Opera, brings high-quality screenings of live opera playing at the MET. It’s the next best thing to being there.

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le Roi S`Amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on 11th March, 1851. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors, who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere and is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi`s middle-to-late career.

The tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto`s beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera`s original title, La Maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto`s encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.

Director Michael Mayer has placed his new production of Verdi’s towering tragedy in Las Vegas in 1960, and is inspired by the antics of the Rat Pack.

Date & Time:

March 8, 2013; 6.30 pm
March 10, 2013; 2 pm, 6.30 pm
March 11, 2013; 6.30 pm

Venue: Dance Theatre Godrej: NCPA, Nariman Point, NCPA Marg, Mumbai

Tickets: Rs 500

Genre: Opera, Screening