 |
| Verdi: Rigoletto - Royal Opera (© ROH 2023 Photo: Tristram Kenton) |
Verdi: Rigoletto; Liparit Avetisyan, Robyn Allegra Parton, Hansung Yoo, director: Oliver Mears, conductor: Sir Mark Elder; Royal Opera House
Reviewed 23 April 2026
With some new faces alongside the old, Oliver Mears' handsome production remains in good health with Mark Elder celebrating 50 years of conducting at the Royal Opera
The Royal Opera's most recent run of Verdi's Rigoletto has been one of those with a rather mix and match cast, made the more complex by illness. We caught the final performance of the run of Oliver Mears' still handsome 2021 production, designed by Simon Lima Holdsworth and Ilona Karas. Rigoletto was sung by Sout Korean baritone Hansung Yoo (a replacement for Daniel Luis de Vicente) with Robin Allegra Parton as Gilda (a role she sang in Jonathan Miller's production at ENO in 2024), and Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan as the Duke. Avetsyan previously at the Royal Opera he sang Lensky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin (in 2024), Alfredo in La traviata and the Duke (in 2021/22). He has more recently been singing the Duke widely. Sir Mark Elder was conducting, marking his 50th anniversary as a conductor at the Royal Opera.
Mears' artful production moves between Renaissance Italy and contemporary to create a particular world with a female nude reminiscent of Titian's Reclining Venus or Giorgione's Sleeping Venus providing a very particular aura for the opening scene.
Liparit Avetisyan proved to be an elegant yet dangerous Duke, in the opening scene adding a vein of viciousness to the stylishness of his singing (and with looks to match). Avetisyan never pushed his voice and he combined the Duke's seductive swagger with an elegance of bearing. As the opera developed there was something deliberately theatrical about him. In the scene in Act One with Robyn Allegra Parton's Gilda he seemed to be deliberately putting on a persona, and this sense carried through. This Duke was all things to all men. Avetisyan never made you think the role was simply a series of well-known arias, his performance was dazzling throughout, and I was completely captivated.
 |
| Verdi: Rigoletto - Liparit Avetisyan - Royal Opera 2021 (© ROH ) |
As was Robyn Allegra Parton's Gilda. Parton sang with plangent, speaking tone with great presence. 'Caro Nome' was brilliantly done, but she also gave us a sense that this Gilda was innocent but not completely naive, with an inner strength. This came out in the powerful Act Two scene with her father when Parton pulled the heart strings yet never seemed canary like. In Act Three in this production she has to be dragged around in a body bag and still be terrific for the final duet. She was. Parton was allocated two performances towards the end of the run but on this showing we deserve to be hearing a lot more from her.
Hansung Yoo has sung smaller roles at the Royal Opera, notably Ping in recent performances of Puccini's Turandot, and he sang the title role in Rigoletto for Dorset Opera Festival last year, but this seems to have been his debut in the role at the Royal Opera. If it was, he gave no sense of that and made the role and the production his own. Yoo sang with great beauty of tone throughout allied to a sense of a wonderfully well-supported line and I definitely want to hear him in more Verdi.
This was not the most angry of Rigolettos, in Act One he was very much the sad clown and though in Act Two's 'Cortigiani' he drew on resources of strength there was never quite the angry bitterness. Instead, this was a performance notable for its aura of melancholy and expressive beauty. He made a fine team mate for Parton and Avetisyan as all three had a sense of expressive beauty of tone and none of the three felt the need to push or over emphasise. Yoo made the long scene in Act Two really count, but it was in Act Three that he really came into his own.
The remainder of the cast provided strong ensemble support. Alexander Köpeczi was stiff and scary Sparafucile, definitely not someone to meet on a dark night, with Elena Maximova rather over doing the 'sexy trollop' aspect of Maddalena but providing fine mezzo-soprano support and making this small role musically interesting. The apparently ageless Willard White made Monterone's curse something completely memorable, with Jamie Woollard, Siphe Kwani and Emyr Lloyd Jones as the courtiers Ceprano, Marullo and Borsa. Amanda Baldwin was Countess Ceprano, Elizabeth Weisberg the (female) page and Veena Akama-Makia was Giovanni.
 |
| Verdi: Rigoletto - Royal Opera (© ROH ) |
In the pit, Mark Elder brought his familiar mix of crisp discipline and sympathy to the music. From the opening notes of the prelude you really sat up and Elder had a crisp way with Verdi's oom-pah rhythms that made them seem completely right. Yet the vocal lines never felt hurried, but kept moving. This was the sort of Verdi that I enjoy, and the orchestra seemed to do so as well. The chorus was in a similarly engagingly disciplined mood, with plenty of music and movement making the big chorus moments by turns engaging (when narrating Gilda's abduction to the Duke) or scary (when actually doing the abduction or in the Act Two scene with Rigoletto.
The blog is free, but I'd be delighted if you were to show your appreciation by buying me a coffee.
Elsewhere on this blog
- America's 250th, 50 years since Britten's death, Miles Davis's centenary, anniversaries for Weber's Oberon & Varèse's Amériques: BBC Proms 2026 - feature
- A delightful jeu d'esprit: a strong cast has great fun with Peter Tranchell's 1950s operetta Twice a Kiss - opera review
- The piece that made me fall in love with song: mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston on Schumann's Dichterliebe - interview
- MOURN: A vividly theatrical mix of Eastern folk traditions & 17th century Italian music from Alkanna Graeca & Figure - music theatre review
- Beautifully wrought & intensely serious: Kitty Whately & Julius Drake explore the songs of Madeleine Dring - record review
- Cross-cultural cross currents: Jasdeep Singh Degun with Fantasia Orchestra in Terry Riley's iconic In C performed by string orchestra, piano, sitar and tabla at Smith Square Hall - concert review
- Bridging worlds: premiere of Eleanor Alberga's Symphony No. 2 by Academy of St Martin in the Fields plus Bacewicz, Price, Carolyn Shaw - review
- Home
No comments:
Post a Comment