Another courtier, Count Monterone, interrupts to defend the honor of his daughter, one of the many young women seduced and abandoned by the Duke. He’s arrested and damns both the Duke and Rigoletto. Rigoletto is terrified by Monterone’s curse since the woman in his home is no mistress. It’s his daughter, Gilda.

Act I, Scene 2

On his way home, Rigoletto runs into Sparafucile, a killer for hire, who assumes the jester has enemies and offers help. Rigoletto declines for now but says they should keep in touch. In an aria of self loathing, he laments his fate as a clown who makes his living ridiculing others. (“Pari siamo”).

Worried about his daughter’s honor and reputation, Rigoletto has been hiding Gilda at home, under the watchful eye of the servant, Giovanna. The Duke isn’t fooled. Disguised as a student with the fake name, Gualtier Maldè, the Duke slips Giovanna a bribe, sneaks into the house, and declares his love in a duet with Gilda, (“È il sol dell’anima”). Left alone, the smitten Gilda declares her love for the Duke in her signature aria (“Caro nome.”)

Meanwhile, Count Ceprano and the other angry nobles have gathered outside. They’ve decided that abducting Rigoletto’s “mistress” is the best revenge. They fool Rigoletto into joining their masked gang. Blindfolded, he holds the ladder that lets the conspirators break into his own house. They grab Gilda and carry her off. Rigoletto rips off his blindfold and realizes he’s been duped into aiding in his daughter’s kidnapping. He wails in grief as he remembers Monterone’s ominous warning.

Act II

At the palace the next morning, the Duke anguishes about Gilda’s whereabouts. The nobles tell him they grabbed Rigoletto’s mistress as a prank and brought her to the palace. Guessing it’s really Gilda, the Duke cheers up and leaves to find her.

Rigoletto arrives, tells the nobles they’ve made a big mistake, that the kidnapped “mistress” is really his daughter. He pleads for their pity but they’re unmoved. Alone with her father, Gilda confesses she loves the Duke. They watch Monterone being taken to his execution. In a moment of mercy, Monterone pardons the Duke and takes back his curse but Rigoletto wants none of this. Rest assured Monterone, he cries. The seduction of our two daughters will be avenged!

Act III

Rigoletto brings Gilda to a tavern. He wants to prove to her that the Duke is a cad. From outside, Gilda watches the Duke in high spirits. (“La donna è mobile”) No longer in his student disguise, the Duke shows his true philandering behavior by romancing Maddalena, the cutthroat Sparafucile’s sister. In an extraordinary quartet, (“Bella figlia dell’amore”), the Duke woos Maddalena while Gilda realizes she’s been double crossed and Rigoletto fumes with anger.

As a storm rages, Rigoletto and Sparafucile settle on a price to kill the Duke. Rigoletto tells Sparafucile he’ll return at midnight to collect the corpse and leaves. Now its Maddalena’s turn. She’s fallen for the Duke and begs her brother to spare him and kill Rigoletto instead. Sparafucile says no. Reconsidering, he tells his sister he’ll kill whomever arrives at the inn before Rigoletto returns.

Gilda has disobeyed her father’s instructions to leave and hung around. Listening to the details of the deadly plot, she decides to sacrifice herself. Disguised in men’s clothing, she knocks on the door and is stabbed by Sparafucile.

Rigoletto returns at midnight and is presented with a body in a large sack. As he leaves, he hears the voice of the Duke singing in the distance. He opens the bag to find the dying body of his daughter. She dies in the arms of her father, who cries that Monterone’s curse has been fulfilled. “Ah! La maledizio!”

- Performance notes by Eugene Carlson

Verdi was born in 1813 in the small northern Italian village of Roncole, near Parma, to a family of modest means. He owed his musical education in Milan to financial support from the man who became his father-in-law. His early life was difficult and sad. His two infant children died, then his wife, all within two years. His first opera was a modest success, the second one bombed, and a depressed Verdi was on the verge of quitting the business.

To the rescue came the director of La Scala, the Milan opera house, who offered Verdi a commission plus an introduction to Giuseppina Strepponi, a well-known diva. The result was Nabucco. It debuted in 1842 with Strepponi in the cast. The opera was a hit and Verdi and Strepponi became companions and eventually married.

Nabucco’s story of the exile of the Jews from Babylon struck a patriotic chord at the time of Italy’s struggle to unify. Over the years, the solemn chorus “Va, pensiero,” or “The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from Act III, took on a nostalgic life of its own. Many Italians know it by heart and it’s often sung at large gatherings. It was a serious contender at one point to be Italy’s national anthem.

Nabucco cemented Verdi’s reputation as both a composer and a passionate patriot. His name even became a shouted slogan of national unity: “Viva VERDI,” the last word an unsubtle acronym for Victor Emmanuel II, the soon to be Italian king. Verdi served briefly in Italy’s first parliament. He was irascible by nature and the candid political views that crept into his operas was, on occasion, reined in by censors.

The Rigoletto story, for example, was originally set in France with King Francis I cast as the licentious lead character. A debauched monarch and other sketchy events of the story didn’t sit well with Italy’s powers that be. To appease the authorities, King Francis was transformed into the Duke of Mantua, ruler of a minor Italian duchy.

Similarly, the murder of Sweden’s King Gustav III was the original centerpiece of Un ballo in maschera until Verdi was persuaded to switch the venue from Stockholm to colonial New England and invent a new fictional character to assassinate — Riccardo, the governor of Boston! The solution to avoid offending the Swedes was ludicrous and later productions thankfully reverted to the original Swedish venue and monarch.

Some critics, their biases lodged in the 18th century when plots were typically frothy with happy endings, found Verdi’s works melodramatic and a bit crude. In Verdi operas, to be sure, there’s usually a dead body or two laying on stage as the curtain falls.

But who cares. Just look at the roll call of his opera hits: Luisa Miller, Il trovatore, La traviata, Simon Boccanegra, Macbeth, Don Carlo, La forza del destino and the operatic spectacular of them all, Aida. Add to this the magnificent “Requiem” written in 1874 in memory of the novelist Alessandro Manzoni. A staple in the repertoire of every serious chorale.

To end his career on the highest possible note, Verdi came out of semi-retirement and leaned on his love of Shakespeare to compose perhaps his greatest tragic opera, Otello. This was followed five years later by the rollicking Falstaff. La Scala’s ticket prices went through the roof for Falstaff’s debut and audience applause and “bravos” at the curtain reportedly lasted an hour.

Verdi lived to the dawn of the 20th century. He died of a stroke in 1901, at age 87. He had created a retirement home for musicians in Milan, Casa di Riposo, and his grave is there, next to Giuseppina, his beloved companion of 50 years.

Italy wept at his death. At his funeral, Arturo Toscanini conducted a combined symphony and chorus. An estimated 200,000 crowded the streets of Milan and, as if on cue, softly sang “Va, pensiero.”

- Performance notes by Eugene Carlson

Pursuing the story two decades later, Verdi knew he was on equally shaky ground with Austrian censors. (Venice was part of Austria’s Habsburg Empire at the time.) His instincts were right. The police turned thumbs down, asking why Verdi would pursue a story of such “repulsive immorality and obscene triviality.”

Piave’s libretto was rejected outright. In an attempt to salvage the idea, Piave and the Venice theater’s management suggested changes. Move the story from France to Mantua, a minor Italian duchy. Make the villain a duke instead of a king. Change the French names to Italian — Triboulet becomes Rigoletto, Blanche becomes Gilda, and so forth.

Verdi was adamant about maintaining the basic plot and refused to back down when censors said a singing hunchback was tasteless. “I thought it would be beautiful to portray this extremely deformed and ridiculous character who is inwardly passionate and full of love,” he argued.

For sure, Rigoletto is no stock leading man. His physical deformity is matched by an odious personality, counterbalanced with an overly-protective love for his innocent daughter that leads to a tragic end. It’s noteworthy that the amoral Duke pays no price for his over- the-top lust. It’s Rigoletto, jester turned villain, who suffers in the end. “A character worthy of Shakespeare,” Verdi called him. Absolutely right.

A compromise version of the Hugo-derived story was given the green light by authorities and the debut performance on March 11, 1852 was a happy triumph. Within three years, the opera was playing worldwide and has remained an overwhelming audience favorite to this day. A factor in its continuing success has been the discovery by opera companies that the 16th century story is eminently adaptable to modern times. Seattle Opera placed the story in Mussolini’s fascist Italy. An English National Opera production changed the characters to mafioso in New York City’s Little Italy neighborhood. In 2012, the Metropolitan Opera created the show as a Las Vegas casino with the Duke of Mantua playing a Rat Pack crooner.

All credit to Verdi. He knew from the start he’d written a masterpiece. His ingenious quartet in Act III consists of two duets, four characters singing sharply contrasting dialogues about the same situation. “I never expect to do better than the Quartet,” he said. “Caro nome,” Gilda’s Act I aria to young love, is a showpiece for any coloratura soprano.

With “La donna è mobile,” Verdi knew before the show opened that he’d hit the jackpot. To prevent a leak to the public, he held the music back from the tenor until the day before dress rehearsal and famously forbid the cast from even humming the catchy melody outside the theater. No worries. The Duke’s bravura anthem to a carefree life has been sung ad infinitum over the years and perhaps more than any melody, spells “opera” to the general public.

Fascinating characters, a story that grabs our hearts, and a glorious musical score that has us humming as we leave the theater. Isn’t that what we want when we go to the opera? You bet it is. And few, if any, operas deliver those goods as brilliantly as Rigoletto.

- Performance notes by Eugene Carlson