SPECTACULAR
A night at the Met Opera, seeing Rigoletto, left me impressed, and also wondering what specifically it is that opera does. This production, reset and reimagined by accomplished Broadway director John Mayer in 1960 Las Vegas, possesses, fittingly, loads of visual razzle dazzle. There are sumptuous silk and sequined costumes, and flashy, majestic sets by Christine Jones.
The only other operas I’ve seen at the Met were both directed by Franco Zefferelli, and each left me feeling as if a distant world were unfolding below me on the round stage of the opera house. In Carmen a medieval Italian village came alive with beggars, peasants and farmers, and a donkey and a horse, as the performers carried on among them. The effect was stagey, but this village had its own texture and rhythms; it was a real place.
Throughout Rigoletto I felt as if I were seeing a Broadway spectacular designed by skilled professionals. The conventions of popular theater certainly brought the story to life: the allover carpet stood telegraphically for the inside of a casino, the sleazy red miasmic glow a strip club, and the slashing neon lights a storm. The actors used broad gestures to communicate, borrowing from sitcoms. One actor dies while emerging from an elevator, and the doors open and close automatically, again and again, on her stiff corpse.
The music, iconic, is performed expressively, particularly by tenor Vittorio Grigolo as the Duke. But it feels as if it has been dropped into the elaborate sets and staging, rather than resting at the heart of the performance. For opera, isn’t that the inverse of how it should be? One expects that the songs will carry the story, and then carry one away.
Photo by Meghan Duffy, Met Opera Production Department.