Nina Brazier’s production of Rigoletto for If Opera (in its delightful new home at Church Farm, Wingfield) presents it as a lively historical spectacle, set at the court of Henry VIII (neatly translating the scene of Victor Hugo’s original play from the court of his contemporary and rival, the French king Francis I). But it is much more than a simple costume drama as the very familiar spectre of that monarch and his milieu brings into clear focus the work’s critique of male, misogynistic assumptions about the role of women in society and how they are controlled.
The thrust stage and intimate setting within the auditorium make us, the audience, almost active participants in the amoral antics of the court led by the king. The simple sets and searing intensity of the cast’s performances also ensure that the drama’s episodes and temper are not romanticised or glossed over, but let them speak with a blunt energy that allows little in the way of defence or complicity with the narrative that climaxes in Gilda’s death. What this otherwise compelling interpretation discounts is the possibility of redemption that is brought about by her sacrifice – the one juncture at which she does exercise some agency, even if from a position of some naivete – as, at some level, the story operates as a modern, secular retelling of the Christian narrative of corruption and salvation. But certainly this is an unflinching vision of how that wickedness first manifests itself in the human world.
In the title role, Alexey Gusev is impressive as an all-too-human, anxious Rigoletto; for all the tenderness and solicitude that the character expresses for Gilda’s welfare, Gusev conveys an impassioned over-protectiveness and neurotic vengefulness with single-minded musical force. Inna Husieva glistens vocally as his daughter, radiant but vulnerable in her closed-up, innocent state, but flourishing with fuller-blooded passion in her last aria, just as her life ebbs away after she has been stabbed. Her purity of vocal character strikes a dramatically effective contrast with Alyona Abramova’s colourful Maddalena, the worldly-wise sister of the assassin Sparafucile, who has her own, less nobly amorous, designs upon the Duke. Ronald Nairne’s Sparafucile sounds as grimly immovable as death itself.
Opportunist and exploiter that the Duke may be, Andrés Presno brings irresistible passion and charm to the role, which is imposing in itself, but adds compellingly to the complex and contradictory tensions at play in the work, between appearance and reality. The way his Act Two aria almost breaks with disappointment as he laments the fact that Gilda has inadvertently been abducted away from his own grasp comes close to convincing that the philandering Duke is ready to change his ways. An alert cast of courtiers work best in ensemble as the gang who drag Gilda away from home, their razor-sharp chorus providing sinister jubilation as they do so.
Although the opera is given in a reduced orchestration, there is no loss of dramatic bite or urgency in the Bristol Ensemble’s account under Oliver Gooch’s direction. Their performance is raw and nervous, for example with the violins and violas digging into their strings to create an effect of niggling evil, while the curse motif comes out in foreboding hues by the woodwind and brass. The keenness and immediacy of this production compels the attention even of those who are wearily familiar with this ubiquitous opera.
