Rigoletto

Lucinda and I went to Rigoletto last Thursday, at the Gaiety Theatre. We got the Luas in and barely made it in time. We were literally the last 2 to get in before they closed the doors - we had just left it a bit too tight, and the curtain up was at 7:30 sharp, as advertised. I find that classical concerts are one of the few things that start on time in this country - probably to do with the musicians' union rules or something.

The show was part of the Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival, whose founder and artistic director is Bernadette Greevy.

We both enjoyed the night, as the singing and the acting was gorgeous. The sets, on the other hand, were dreadful, really plasticky (I'm talking plastic grapes in bowls here!), and didn't work well in such a dynamic opera, where some of the scenes include 2 viewpoints, e.g. Gilda and Rigoletto outside Sparfucile's house and Sparfucile and his sister Maddalena inside. Very hard to present this in a realistic way. The first time I saw Rigoletto at an Opera Ireland production, it was done in a much more modern, abstract way, which worked much better.

But that said, the sets didn't really matter, given the strength of the top 3 singers, Scott Piper (The Duke of Mantua), Mikolaj Zalasinski (Rigoletto, the court jester) and Talise Trevigne (Gilda, Rigoletto's daughter). All 3 were fantastic singers, and excellent actors too.

Scott Piper's duke of Mantua managed not only to seduce all the women onstage, but also the audience offstage (despite being a little bit overweight!).

Mikolaj Zalasinski had probably the toughest role, as Rigoletto is onstage more or less through the whole opera - a fantastic actor - he plays the court jester who finds that the whole court is against him when the Duke of Mantua seduces his daughter - He managed to bring a lot of energy to the character of Rigoletto, while at the same time making you feel sorry for Rigoletto's plight. His voice was fantastic throughout.

And Talise Trevigne's Gilda was a real surprise - I thought she brought out Gilda's rebellious streak out perfectly. Her Gilda is not just an innocent young woman who falls (and is fallen by) the wrong man. She is her own woman who decides to take her life in her own hands (for the wrong reasons, of course, silly girl!) rather than following what daddy says. She had the most beautiful and powerful voice. And she is a stunning-looking woman, with the highest cheekbones I've ever seen!

For a clip of Ms Trevigne, check out RTE's The View. (You will need Real Player to play the clip)