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Opera Music Plot Synopsis
Verdi: Rigoletto
Act I
Scene 1
At a ball at the ducal court of Mantua, the hunchbacked jester
Rigoletto mocks
the courtiers cuckolded by the profligate Duke, stirring them
to plans of
vengeance. Count Monterone appeals to the Duke for the return
of his dishonoured
daughter, but is cruelly mocked by Rigoletto. Enraged, Monterone
calls down a
father's curse on the terrified jester.
Scene 2
Outside his house, Rigoletto encounters Sparafucile, a professional
assassin,
but has no need of his services. Rigoletto warns his daughter
Gilda to remain
concealed in their home. She does not reveal to him that she
has fallen in love
with a handsome young man she has encountered on her way to
church. The object
of her affections is the Duke, who appears as soon as Rigoletto
has left,
bribing Gilda's nurse to admit him and to speak well of him
to Gilda. He tells
her he is a poor student. After he leaves, the courtiers come
to abduct Gilda,
believing her to be Rigoletto's mistress. They trick Rigoletto
into assisting
them, assuring him that it is the Countess Ceprano they are
abducting from the
neighboring house. When he realizes what has happened, he
is distraught. He
remembers the curse.
Act II
The courtiers describe their abduction of Gilda to the Duke.
He is delighted to
discover that she has been brought to his palace and awaits
him in his bedroom.
Rigoletto now enters, feigning indifference but desperately
seeking signs of the
whereabouts of his daughter. When he realizes what has happened
he first curses,
then pleads with the courtiers for her return, but to no avail.
Gilda appears en
deshabille, and Rigoletto swears vengeance on the Duke.
Act III
The Duke has been lured to a remote inn by Sparafucile's sister
Maddalena.
Rigoletto has paid Sparafucile to kill the Duke and to deliver
his body in a
sack so that he may himself throw it into the Mincio. Rigoletto
brings Gilda
with him to spy on the inn, hoping to reinforce the notion
that the Duke is not
a man of honour in affairs of the heart. Gilda is unimpressed.
Rigoletto sends
her home to change into men's clothing for their flight to
Verona. Infatuated
with the Duke herself, Maddalena begs her brother to spare
him and to murder the
jester instead. His sense of professional responsibility offended,
Sparafucile
refuses, but does go so far as to agree that if anyone else
should happen to
show up at the inn on this wild and stormy night, he will
murder them instead.
Gilda, returning and hearing all this, sees her chance to
help the man she
loves. She boldly walks up to the door of the inn, knocks,
is admitted and
promptly stabbed and stuffed into the sack for Rigoletto.
Rigoletto is just
about to throw the sack in the river when he hears the Duke
still singing in the
inn. Wildly he opens the sack to find his dying daughter,
who with her last
breath assures him that she will pray for him with her mother
in heaven. Again,
Rigoletto recalls Monterone's curse.
synopsis by Rick Bogart
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