Depravity and deceit: a life disintegrating … The irony of this Welsh National Opera website headline for its new production of Rigoletto is that disintegration risks being the fate of WNO itself. On this opening night of the season, the orchestra and chorus – bedrock of the company – were in exceptionally strong form, honouring Verdi and sounding as if their lives depended on it, which, in fact they do, these being the jobs under threat for lack of funding. The vengeful curse placed by Count Monterone on the Duke of Mantua and his court jester Rigoletto must seem to mirror the double curse placed on the company by the respective Arts Councils of England and Wales.
Perhaps the necessity of maintaining a defiant stance in this situation goes some way to explain the air of manic intensity that felt to be the defining element of Adele Thomas’s direction: flailing arms and wild gesturing, exaggerated movements ostensibly heightening tension. Her overall approach was apparently prompted by anger at the Partygate shenanigans during the pandemic but, while the decadent orgy at the court of Mantua references Bullingdon, the Piers Gaveston society – a roast hog couldn’t be more specific – and Bunga Bunga parties, the general debauchery and simulated sex was more frantic than shocking. Over the three acts, cynicism and calculated cruelty were the most potent elements, with Annemarie Woods’s starkly minimal set and curious array of costumes – female courtiers in 19th-century crinolines, men in vaguely 16th-century garb, wigs, ruffs and baggy shorts, black Darth Vader-like outfits for the kidnappers – mixing historical periods to suggest that society’s moral failings are a constant throughout time.
The balance of fine detail and dramatic colour that conductor Pietro Rizzo elicited from the players, together with impressive singing from principals, made up for misgivings about the staging. Emotionally resonant performances from Daniel Luis de Vicente in the title role and Soraya Mafi as Gilda ensured that the father-daughter relationship which Verdi invests with such passionately felt music made theirs the most convincing singing. De Vicente used his rich baritone to convey both the tortured nature of Rigoletto’s flawed character and the tenderness of his paternal devotion. As Gilda, Mafi was perfectly cast, her soprano stunningly beautiful, silvery with pin-point precision, everything immaculately delivered, and looking as young as she needs to be to portray her vulnerability, delirious with love. It was nerve-racking, though, to watch her have to negotiate an overlong voluminous dress, red on white to signify the bloodstains of her eventual self-sacrifice so as to spare the Duke who seduced her.
Raffaele Abete’s duke was made to cut a rather ridiculous figure: vain, foppish, hardly credible as the obsessive predator, but bringing off his big arias with a degree of nonchalance. Having Nathanaël Tavernier’s Sparafucile and Alyona Abramova’s Maddalena elegantly and conspiratorially present at the ducal court from the outset was a telling intervention.
Safe-old, same-old for a company on the ropes may no longer be an option and Thomas – who, with Sarah Crabtree, will soon share the general directorship and chief executive reins – clearly hasn’t gone for safe here. The laughing mockery of the courtiers at the final tragedy strikes a deeply sinister note, nevertheless it’s the fine and, as yet uncompromised, quality of the music that distinguishes the show.
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