The censors originally denounced it for repulsive immorality and obscene triviality. But then that was Venice in 1851. Tastes and tolerance levels may have changed but the sexiness murderous conniving and dark manipulation found in the plot of Verdi's masterpiece Rigoletto hasn't. Through its Opera in Cinema series Emerging Pictures will bring the performance of David McVicar's Rigoletto to the big screen Live in HD from London's Royal Opera House on April 17th. The role of Rigoletto will be performed by Dimitri Platanias Gilda by Ekaterina Siurina and the Duke of Mantua by Vittorio Grigolo; music is performed by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by John Eliot Gardiner. The live performance will be seen simultaneously in nearly 150 of Emerging's network of 300 theaters; the others theaters in the network will show the performance captured live in the weeks following the live performance. The opera tells the story of Rigoletto a deformed and ridiculed court jester who aids and abets his master the Duke of Mantua in the seduction of young innocent women. After mocking the husbands and fathers of the Duke's victims Rigoletto finds the tables turned on him when the Duke seduces Rigoletto's own daughter Gilda. Driven mad with despair and filled with hateful vengeance Rigoletto finds the tables turned yet again and an already dark tale becomes even more tragically and murderously dark before the final curtain falls. First performed at Venice's world-renowned La Fenice opera house in 1851 Rigoletto is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi's middle-to-late career. With its offstage rape onstage murder and general ambience of sexual licentiousness the Venetian authorities condemned the opera; it was just one of Verdi's many rows with the censors. Yet as Verdi's first through-composed piece of music-theatre it was a groundbreaking work that went on to become one of the best known of all chorus operas much loved for such tuneful numbers as La donna e mobile sung by the carefree Duke and the beautiful and virtuosic Caro nome from the innocent Gilda. Based on Victor Hugo's play Le Roi s'amuse the libretto is by Francesco Maria Piave.
