Opening night fight at the Teatro Real. The production of Verdi’s Rigoletto with which the Madrid coliseum faces this Christmas – 22 performances until January 2 – received loud boos on Saturday that contrasted with the ovations for the artists, especially the baritone Ludovic Tézier, for his interpretation of the court jester, but also the tenor Javier Camarena as the Duke of Mantua and the highly celebrated soprano Adela Zaharia for her role as Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter.
When the stage director Miguel del Arco and his team came out to greet, the bravos to the artists and the orchestra, directed by Nicola Luisotti, gave way to the oohs and the shouts of “get out” from an apparently more conservative audience, who was dissatisfied with the idea of ??setting the plot in a brothel and having fifteen dancers illustrating masturbation and fellatio with compulsive movements. And let alone listen to a sacralized aria such as “La donna è mobile” by a vulgar Camarena who drinks his beer in a roadside brothel and describes the female specimen as “charming”, “elegant” and “deceptive”. “, while toasting with colleagues.
“Shameful, but how do they put that, breaking the climax of what is happening!” commented a disgusted spectator during the intermission. “Even the red curtains act as a cheap cabaret, it looks like a Parallel porn theater, how horrible!” And also: “They were all fucking!” “Very slum” “And the thing about ‘La donna è mobile’, how unpleasant!”
For Miguel del Arco, if Rigoletto has to be placed in its proper environment, it will have to be in a brothel. The controversial plot of Le roi s’amuse, by Victor Hugo, which later inspired this opera by Giuseppe Verdi, is truly a story of ugliness, of whores, of cynical and immoral seducers, and of dark alleys in which to hunt among laughter at the women who are going to be handed over to the king.
The hunchbacked court jester – that Rigoletto who in the opera no longer serves a 16th century French king but rather the Duke of Mantua, who will not be the object of censorship – participates in this hunt, and although resentful of the mockery and scorn he the courtiers dedicate to him – “that cursed race” -, he cheers and facilitates debauchery, he is an accomplice… until he is also a victim, because his master’s lasciviousness will reach his own daughter.
El Real celebrates Christmas with an open face, in the way in which Verdi exposed the shame of nineteenth-century society to the bourgeoisie of the time, its abuses of power and its hypocritical patriarchy. The author of La traviata, Aida or Il trovatore specialized in portraying the oppression under which women lived; even his own romantic self-denial. Under a mantle of musical beauty and a range of emotions – Rigoletto’s revenge would be one of them – he invariably underlay that denunciation. Now it was about showing it to the public of the 21st century with the attitudes and costumes of its own present.
This is what the theater director himself pointed out in the post-premiere celebration with the artists. The Madrid playwright was not affected by the public’s angry reaction. In his opinion, there is nothing left over from his production, nor from the set design by the Germans Sven and Ivana Jonke. Luz Arcas signs the choreography, with a final nude of the fifteen dancers, here angels who take Gílda to the other world after the curse has fallen on Rigoletto and her plan to kill the duke has killed her daughter. .
Javier Camarena claims to feel comfortable with the assembly. And he is looking forward to having his entire family from Mexico arrive to spend Christmas in Spain to see him perform – he has just taken up residence in Malaga -, although he has not considered to what extent it will be appropriate for his young children. . Ludovic Tézier, probably the greatest Rigoletto for thousands of miles around, observes that, taking into account the need to create new opera audiences, the opportunity to offer a production for the whole family at Christmas time is missed… While Adela Zaharia thinks all the fuss is absurd… “I, who come from Germany, am delighted with this set-up in which they don’t make me do anything strange.”
The Romanian soprano made a great impression on the Real audience, who gave her a long applause at the end of the aria “Caro nome” in the first act. The one who was Pamina in The Magic Flute in 2016 at the Liceu and Donna Anna in the Real pandemic’s Don Giovanni, proves to be a solvent Gilda with a careful vocal timbre. The Italian mezzo Marina Viotti delivered as Maddalena, the prostitute who serves the duke in shorts and drag platforms, and blended wonderfully with the rest of the main cast in the third act quartet, “Un dì, se ben rammentomi”, when Rigoletto loves her show her daughter that her beloved duke is a… little shame.
Nicola Luisotti offers a practically chamber version of this opera, with Verdian flashes at specific moments. “It’s because the characters are people who are very alone, the arias and duets reflect it that way,” he commented. The Real men’s choir/pack was an undisputed protagonist of the night. And in the coming evenings he will support two more casts of bells: Xavier Anduaga-Étienne Dupuis-Julie Fucks in the second cast, and John Osborn-Quinn Kelsey-Ruth Iniesta in the third.
The opening night was attended by the Vice President of the Government, Nadia Calviño, a regular at the Real, who also seemed especially satisfied with the show. The former president of the congress, Meritxell Batet, announced that she would attend the second function, as would the general director of Inaem, Joan Francesc Marco, who the day before was busy with the funeral chapel of Concha Velasco.
