Rigoletto Is the Feb. 4, 2017, Metropolitan Opera Saturday Matinee Broadcast

Summary: The Feb. 4, 2017, Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcast is Rigoletto, a three-act tragic opera by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi.

Verdi's Rigoletto airs as the Feb. 4, 2017, Saturday matinee broadcast during the 2016-2017 Met Opera season: Meet Me At The Opera @MMATOpera via Twitter Jan. 20, 2017

Rigoletto, a three-act, tragic opera concerning the horrific fulfillment of a curse by Italian opera composer Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Oct. 10, 1813-Jan. 27, 1901), is the Feb. 4, 2017, Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcast.

Italian librettist Francesco Maria Piave (May 18, 1810-March 5, 1876) wrote the Italian libretto. The literary source is Le Roi s’amuse, a five-act play by French dramatist, novelist and poet Victor Marie Hugo (Feb. 26, 1801-May 22, 1885). Hugo’s play, set in 15th century Paris, concerns the excessive amorous exploits of François Ier (Francis I, Sept. 12, 1494-March 31, 1547) ninth of the 13 kings of France’s House of Valois dynasty who reigned from April 1, 1328, to Aug. 2, 1589.

Rigoletto’s triumphant premiere took place March 11, 1851. The venue was Teatro La Fenice in the San Marco sestiere (“area”) of Venice in northeastern Italy. Opened Dec. 26, 1837, as replacement for the first, destroyed in a fire Dec. 13, 1836, La Fenice’s second building hosted all five of Verdi’s Venice premieres. Rigoletto marked La Fenice’s third Verdi premiere.

The composer and his librettist set Rigoletto in the 16th century. The locale is the Duchy of Mantua in northwestern Italy’s Lombardy region. The Metropolitan Opera’s 2016-2017 production fast forwards Rigoletto to Las Vegas, Clark County, southeastern Nevada, in 1960.

The Saturday matinee broadcast of Cyrano de Bergerac begins at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (6 p.m. Coordinated Universal Time). The estimated run time for the performance is about 3 hours 2 minutes. The performance, sung in the original Italian, comprises three acts and two intermissions.

Act I is timed at 57 minutes. A 27-minute intermission follows Act I.

Act II is timed at 32 minutes. A 32-minute intermission follows Act II.

Act III is timed at 34 minutes. The Saturday matinee broadcast performance ends with Act III’s final notes.

Pier Giorgio Morandi conducts all performances, including the Saturday matinee broadcast, of Rigoletto. Pier Giorgio Morandi’s appearance on the conductor’s podium marks his Metropolitan Opera debut.

Željko Lučić appears in the title role as the Duke of Mantua’s humpbacked jester, who learns, at a terrible price, the lesson of what goes around comes around. He was born in Zrenjanin, Vojvodina, northern Serbia. Serbian operatic baritone debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2006 as Barnaba in La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli (Aug. 31, 1834-Jan. 16, 1886). Željko Lučić also appears this season in the title role of Verdi’s Nabucco and as Jochanaan in Salome by Richard Georg Strauss (June 11, 1864-Sept. 8, 1949).

Olga Peretyatko appears as Gilda, Rigoletto’s trusting daughter whose misplaced love for the libertine Duke of Mantua, her father’s womanizing patron, impels her to sacrifice her life. Her birthplace is St. Petersburg, northwestern Russia. The Russian operatic soprano debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2014 as Elvira Walton in I Puritani by Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (Nov. 3, 1801-Sept. 23, 1835).

Stephen Costello appears as the Duke of Mantua, who unscrupulously seduces his jester’s naïve daughter. His birthplace is Philadelphia, southeastern Pennsylvania. The American operatic tenor debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2007 as Arturo in Lucia di Lammermoor by Italian opera composer Domenico Gaetano Donizetti (Nov. 29, 1797-April 8, 1848). Stephen Costello also appears this season as Roméo in Roméo et Juliette by French composer Charles-François Gounod (June 17, 1818-Oct. 18, 1893).

Stephen Costello appears in January performances and in the Saturday matinee broadcast. He shares the role of the dissolute duke this season with Joseph Calleja.

Born in Attard, central Malta, Joseph Calleja appears in all April performances. His appearance as the unfaithful Duke marks the Maltese tenor’s Metropolitan Opera debut.

Andrea Mastroni appears as Sparafucile, an assassin who promises his sister to spare the Duke’s life if another target appears by midnight. He was born in Milan, Lombardy, northwestern Italy. The Italian bass’s appearance as Sparafucile marks his Metropolitan Opera debut.

Andrea Mastroni appears in all January performances as well as in the Saturday matinee broadcast. He shares the role of Sparafucile this season with Štefan Kocán, who appears in all April performances.

Born in Trnava, western Slovakia, Štefan Kocán debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2009 as the King of Egypt in Verdi’s Aida. The Slovak operatic bass also appears this season as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Jan. 27, 1756-Dec. 5, 1791) and as Prince Gremin in Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (May 7, 1840-Nov. 6, 1893).

Oksana Volkova appears as Maddalena, who besottedly extracts a promise from her brother, Sparafucile, that has devastating consequences. Her birthplace is Minsk, Republic of Belarus. The Belarusian mezzo-soprano reprises the role she debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2013.

Oksana Volkova appears in all January performances as well as in the Saturday matinee broadcast. She shares the role of Maddalena this season with Nancy Fabiola Herrera, who appears in all April performances.

Born in Caracas, north central coastal Venezuela, to Canadian parents, Nancy Fabiola Herrera debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in 2015 as Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The Spanish mezzo-soprano also appears this season as Fenena in Verdi’s Nabucco and as Herodias in Richard Strauss’s Salome.

Operabase, an online database, places Giuseppe Verdi in first place in a ranking of 1,281 most popular composers for the five seasons from 2011/2012 to 2015/16. Rigoletto occupies 10th place in the list of 2,658 most popular operas.

The Metropolitan Opera’s 2016 Repertory Report gives performance statistics through Oct. 31. Rigoletto holds sixth place, with 878 performances, for the period from first Met performance, Nov. 16, 1883, to last performance, Dec. 17, 2015. The Metropolitan Opera’s 2016-2017 season falls outside the report’s parameters.

The takeaway for Rigoletto as the Feb. 4, 2017, Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcast is the horrible fulfillment of a curse flung as Rigoletto’s naïve daughter sacrifices her life to save her father’s dissolute patron. Unlike Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Verdi’s serial seducer eludes accountability.

The 2016-2017 Met Opera season's performances of Verdi's Rigoletto mark the third revival of Michael Mayer's staging, which debuted as a new production at Met Opera Jan. 28, 2013: Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera via Facebook Jan. 20, 2017

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Verdi's Rigoletto airs as the Feb. 4, 2017, Saturday matinee broadcast during the 2016-2017 Met Opera season: Meet Me At The Opera @MMATOpera via Twitter Jan. 20, 2017, @ https://twitter.com/MMATOpera/status/822520648165519360

The 2016-2017 Met Opera season's performances of Verdi's Rigoletto mark the third revival of Michael Mayer's staging, which debuted as a new production at Met Opera Jan. 28, 2013: Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera via Facebook Jan. 20, 2017, @ https://www.facebook.com/MetOpera/photos/a.134969600532.229232.20807115532/10158228862185533/

For further information:

"Composers: Composers Ranked by the Number of Performances of Their Operas Over the Five Seasons 2011/2012 to 2015/16." Operabase > Opera Statistics.
Available @ http://operabase.com/top.cgi?lang=en

Meet Me At The Opera @MMATOpera. "Plans tonight in #NewYork? Verdi's Rigoletto @MetOpera." Twitter. Jan. 20, 2017.
Available @ https://twitter.com/MMATOpera/status/822520648165519360

Metropolitan Opera @MetOpera. "Olga Peretyatko is Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto. Tickets from $25: bit.ly/2jtqHyP Photo by Richard Termine//Metropolitan Opera." Facebook. Jan. 20, 2017.
Available @ https://www.facebook.com/MetOpera/photos/a.134969600532.229232.20807115532/10158228862185533/

“Performances Statistics Through October 31, 2016.” MetOpera Database > The Metropolitan Opera Archives > Repertory Report.
Available @ http://archives.metoperafamily.org/archives/Database%20Opera%20Statistics.xml