The Manhattan Lyric Opera Company presents Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic masterpiece Rigoletto. The Hunchbacked jester, Rigoletto, seeks vengeance on his lecherous master the Duke of Mantua who has seduced his beloved and pure daughter Gilda.  He plots to kill the Duke, but in a simple twist of fate his own lust for vengeance turns against him.  Come here one of the most beautiful and adored operas that Verdi ever wrote!

Strolling among the courtiers who throng the ballroom of his palace, the Duke of Mantua boasts of his many amorous conquests (Questo o quello).  His hunchbacked Jester, Rigoletto, suggests that his master win the beautiful Countess Ceprano by imprisoning her husband. Ceprano, furious, vows in revenge to abduct a young girl whom he believes to be Rigoletto’s mistress.  When Monterone, an elderly noble, forces his way in to denounce the Duke for seducing his daughter.  He is mocked by Rigoletto, sure of his master’s protection.  As Monterone is led away to prison by the guards he curses Rigoletto, who being very superstitious, falls to the floor in horror.

Brooding over the curse, Rigoletto hurries late at night to the house where he has hidden his beloved daughter, Gilda.  Before he reaches his gate he is accosted by Sparafucile, a professional assassin, who offers his services for a fee.  But Rigoletto dismisses him, reflecting bitterly that his tongue works as much harm as the assassin’s dagger.  The mood of the jester softens when he is greeted by Gilda; lonesome in her seclusion, the girl embraces her father and begs him to her the story of her mother, who died long ago.  Rigoletto sadly replies that his wife was an angel, adding that now Gilda is all he has left to love in the world.  Ever fearful for his daughter’s safety, he summons her nurse, Giovanna, whom he warns not to admit anyone to the house.  As the jester leaves, the Duke himself slips past him into the garden.  Pitching a purse of coins to Giovanna as a bribe, he declares his love for the astonished Gilda, telling her that he is a poor student named Gaultier Malde.  When footsteps are heard in the street, Gilda pleads with him to flee.  Alone, she dwells tenderly on his name (Caro nome) before ascending the staircase to her room.  Meanwhile, the malicious courtiers incited by Ceprano, stop Rigoletto in the dark street and ask his aid in abducting Ceprano’s wife who lives across the way.  Relieved, the jester allows himself to be masked like the others, but the courtiers blindfold him instead.  In his confusion Rigoletto places their ladder against his own wall, while the courtiers laugh among themselves at their chance to outwit him;  they break into his house and quickly carry off Gilda.  At the sound of the girl’s muffled cry for help, the duped jester tears the blindfold from his eyes to find himself alone.  Seized with terror, he rushes into the garden, discovers Gilda’s scarf and, after searching her room, reappears in anguish.

The Duke paces a room in his palace, fearing that his courtiers have robbed him of Gilda, whom he imagines in lonely tears.  When the courtiers return to tell him they have brought the girl to his chamber, the libertine rushes to the conquest.  Soon Rigoletto enters searching for Gilda, who he confesses to the indifferent courtiers, is his daughter.  Though astonished, they bar his way to the Duke’s quarters, at which the jester lashes out at them for their cruelty and treachery, ending his tirade with a plea for mercy.  At that very moment Gilda appears, disheveled in her nightdress; she runs in shame to her father, who orders the courtiers to leave.  When they are alone, the girl tells her father of the long courtship of the Duke, whom she had seen each week at Mass.  As Monterone is led through the corridors, the enraged Rigoletto swears to avenge his wrongs; Gilda, out of love, begs for the Duke’s pardon.

On a dark night, Rigoletto and Gilda lurk outside the lonely inn to which Sparafucile, aided by his voluptuous sister, Maddalena, lures his victims.  The jester forces Gilda to watch the Duke, disguised as a soldier, make love to Maddalena, laughing all the while at the fickleness of woman; while Maddalena leads her intended victim on, the jester comforts his daughter in the shadows outside.  He tells the girl to go home, dress herself as a boy and then meet him in Verona;  he pays Sparafucile to murder the Duke and departs.  As a storm brews, Gilda returns to overhear Maddalena urge her brother to spare the handsome stranger and kill Rigoletto instead.  Shocked by her lack of professional ethics, Sparafucile refuses, but at length he agrees to substitute the next guest who comes to the inn.  Gilda, glad to sacrifice herself to save the Duke, knocks on the door at the height of the storm, is pulled into the inn and fatally stabbed.  Before long, Rigoletto returns to collect the body of the Duke.  The jester gloats over the sack the assassin gives him to dump in the nearby river, but on hearing the supposedly dead libertine’s voice in the distance, he frantically cuts open the sack to find his daughter’s crumpled body.  Asking forgiveness, Gilda tells Rigoletto that she goes to join her mother in heaven.  When she dies, the distraught father cries that Monterone’s curse has been fulfilled.