Six years after the last performance at the Arena of Verona, Giuseppe Verdi’s popular opera Rigoletto is back on stage for four evenings in a new production directed by Marco Armilato.

Four well-known baritones will play Rigoletto, each on one of the four evenings: the Russian Roman Burdenko, the French Ludovic Tézier, Italian Luca Salsi and the Mongolian Enkhbaty Amartuvshin.

The opera is set in sixteenth century Mantua. Rigoletto is a corrupt and corrupting man, deformed in body and spirit. Thanks to his role as court fool, he manages to manipulate aristocrats and score some social revenge, manipulating behind the scenes with a rage that consumes him. Audiences have an insight into Rigoletto’s malice at the very beginning of the drama when, during one of the many sumptuous feasts at the Duke of Mantua’s court, he is terribly spiteful to an elderly father who comes to save his daughter Gilda, a young girl who risks taking the wrong path in the dazzling, depraved and pleasure-loving court life. The disrespect shown by Rigoletto to this man is beyond all limits and subsides only when the old man issues the worst curse possible.

Repeat performances:

- 1, 7, 20 July at 9 pm

- 4 August at 8.45 pm