He recalls the curse as the curtain descends. The Duke is missing his Gilda, but he is soon excited to hear that the noblemen have just kidnapped her. She is in his bedroom, which is like Christmas coming early for the Duke.
He dashes off as Rigoletto enters, trying to appear like nothing is wrong. He tries to find out what has happened to Gilda without giving much away but soon breaks down and desperately demands her return. Gilda emerges dishevelled. As she describes what has happened to her, Rigoletto gets very angry indeed. Monterone happens to be being dragged through and curses the fact that his curse has not come to pass.
Rigoletto shouts after him that he is wrong and swears vengeance on the Duke, though Gilda continues to defend the Duke as she is still in love We find ourselves at the home of Sparafucile the assassin from Act I. While we have been supping interval drinks, Rigoletto has arranged for Sparafucile to kill the Duke and present the body in a sack for Rigoletto to dispose of himself in the river.
Sparafucile has used his sister, Maddalena, to lure the Duke to his home. The Duke goes to bed. Gilda comes creeping back to overhear Maddalena, trying to convince Sparafucile not to kill the Duke. Sparafucile agrees to kill anyone who comes to his door before midnight. If no one comes, the Duke will die.
Gilda, still deeply in love, resolves to sacrifice herself. She knocks on the door and Sparafucile stabs her. Rigoletto returns and is given the sack by Sparafucile. He gloats over what he believes is the body of the Duke.
The Duke, still safely alive, is overheard singing. In a panic, Rigoletto cuts open the sack to find his beloved daughter inside! With her dying breath, Gilda begs for forgiveness.
Commissioned in April by La Fenice in Venice, Verdi set about finding a suitable subject for his new opera. The singers were given some of their music to learn on 7 February. However, Verdi kept at least a third of the score at Busseto. He brought it with him when he arrived in Venice for the rehearsals on 19 February and would continue to refine the orchestration during the rehearsal period.
At a ball in his palace, the Duke sings of a life of pleasure with as many women as possible: " Questa o quella " "This woman or that". He has seen an unknown beauty in church and desires to possess her, but he also wishes to seduce the Countess of Ceprano. Rigoletto, the Duke's hunchbacked court jester, mocks the husbands of the ladies to whom the Duke is paying attention, and advises the Duke to get rid of them by prison or death.
Marullo informs the noblemen that Rigoletto has a "lover", and the noblemen cannot believe it. The noblemen resolve to take vengeance on Rigoletto. Subsequently Rigoletto mocks Count Monterone, whose daughter the Duke had seduced. Count Monterone is arrested at the Duke's order and curses the Duke and Rigoletto.
The curse genuinely terrifies Rigoletto. Thinking of the curse, Rigoletto approaches his house and is accosted by the assassin Sparafucile, who walks up to him and offers his services. Rigoletto considers the proposition but finally declines; Sparafucile wanders off, after repeating his own name a few times.
Rigoletto contemplates the similarities between the two of them: " Pari siamo! Rigoletto opens a door in the wall and returns home to his daughter Gilda. They greet each other warmly: " Figlia! Rigoletto has been concealing his daughter from the Duke and the rest of the city, and she does not know her father's occupation. Since he has forbidden her to appear in public, she has been nowhere except to church and does not even know her own father's name. When Rigoletto has gone, the Duke appears and overhears Gilda confess to her nurse Giovanna that she feels guilty for not having told her father about a young man she had met at the church, but that she would love him even more if he were a student and poor.
As she declares her love, the Duke enters, overjoyed. Gilda, alarmed, calls for Giovanna, unaware that the Duke had sent her away. Pretending to be a student, the Duke convinces Gilda of his love: " E il sol dell'anima " "Love is the sunshine of the soul". Hearing sounds and fearing that her father has returned, Gilda sends the Duke away after they quickly trade vows of love: " Addio, addio " "Farewell, farewell".
Caro nome " "Dearest name". Later, a preoccupied Rigoletto returns: " Riedo! Convincing Rigoletto that they are actually abducting the Countess Ceprano, they blindfold him and use him to help with the abduction: " Zitti, zitti " "Softly, softly". With her father's unknowing assistance Gilda is carried away by the noblemen.
Upon realizing that it was in fact Gilda who was carried away, Rigoletto collapses, remembering the curse. The noblemen then enter and inform him that they have captured Rigoletto's mistress. By their description, he recognizes it to be Gilda, and he rushes off to the room where she is held: "Possente amor mi chiama" "Mighty love beckons me". Pleased by the Duke's strange excitement, the courtiers now make sport with Rigoletto, who enters singing.
He tries to find Gilda by pretending to be uncaring, as he fears she may fall into the hands of the Duke. Finally, he admits that he is in fact seeking his daughter and asks the courtiers to return her to him: "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata" "Accursed race of courtiers". The men beat up Rigoletto after his attempt to run into the room in which Gilda is being held. Gilda rushes in and begs her father to send the people away. The men leave the room believing Rigoletto has gone mad. Gilda describes to her father what has happened to her in the palace: "Tutte le feste al tempio" "On all the blessed days".
He discovers her with the Duke, which fuels his anger and desire for revenge. Act Three commences with Rigoletto hiring Sparfucile, a professional assassin to murder the Duke.
Sparfucile's plan is for his sister Maddelena to seduce the Duke and take him to an isolated inn. Overhearing this, Gilda tragically sacrifices herself at the hands of the assassin. A novel composition for the time, the Duke was the only character with the established two-part conventional aria.
The second part of this aria is called the Possente amor. There are two other arias for the Duke which resemble canzonettas and are typically light-hearted.
The single aria dedicated to Gilda's character is a dream-like sequence about the Duke which entirely lacks the usual dazzling conclusion. Rigoletto's arias are quite similar to monologues, commanding exceptional vocal resources.
This very anger drives the rest of the plot and its ultimate culmination into the tragedy Rigoletto is famous for. Verdi hoped to provide us with an insight into the lustful nature of the Duke's celebrations with his music as lewd as him. The composer successfully establishes an environment consisting of amoral aristocrats.
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