Verdi: Rigoletto [Blu-ray] [Region Free] [2013]

great performance can really recommend it . But what a pity Gobbi was not alive when it was possible to make recordings like this

I bought this after reading several long reviews on amazon that gave it great praise. Rigoletto is my favourite Verdi opera and I have bought most DVD and Blu-ray releases in recent years. Whilst I must agree this is generally very well sung I was not impressed by the Blu-ray transfer. Its great strength is the outstanding visual and vocal performances of Nucci and Machaidze. Nucci has done this before on Blu-ray from Zurich and here he is even better. His little limp and shuffle is perfect for the pathetic jester. As Gilda Machaidze not only sings wonderfully but looks the part too. In my view the best overall Gilda on disc. Demuro is good as the lecherous Duke but not I thought exceptional. The minor parts were well sung but not that well cast, as an example the sexy Countess of Ceprano is very mature and overweight and could not possibly have attracted a sex-crazed lout like the Duke with so many women to tempt him! The other small parts all look the same and have little to distinguish them - such a strong point in the outstanding Las Vegas production. The video quality is really quite poor. Most scenes are dark and gloomy and the HD cameras struggle. Skin tones make everyone look like Indonesians and the subtitles are very hard to read as they are too small, too dull and are often distorted by strong backgrounds. Unlike Las Vegas where the subtitles have been jazzed up and are consequently much easier to read, here they are in the old stilted style and together with the technical issues do not flow. I was not very happy with the microphone performances, the sound was not as rounded and luminous as I had expected. This would have been a great performance in the theatre with a pair of opera glasses but this Blu-ray transfer is a big let down. One advantage for Asian viewers is that it has Chinese, Japanese and Korean subtitles. The Chinese translations are better than the English. Buy this with caution. If you can accept the Las Vegas version that is the best version on offer at this time in my view but for a perfect traditional view I am still waiting.

Great performance easpecially brilliant singing by Macaidze and Nucci.Speedy delivery.Thanks.

A superb production, very traditional in style. It is hard to imagine a better Rigoletto than Leo Nucci and Nino Machaidze is just perfect as Gilda with stunning looks, great singing and acting. The duets between these two are extremely moving. Francesco Demuro as the Duke of Mantua looks the part but is slightly less convincing in his singing and acting. An outstanding and moving production. Highly recommended.

This is a gorgeous, traditional production (Parma, 2008). You can watch it on youtube instead of reading this long-winded review. I usually have a hard time really getting into the drama of a work as familiar as Rigoletto. Another problem is that the memory of so many great singers haunts every line. So you watch and listen, taking in the gorgeous tunes with mild weariness and dutifully noting every deficiency or failing of the performers, until it can become an exercise in self-fulfilling disappointment. The exact moment I snapped out of this attitude and into the heart of the tragedy was when Nucci cries out in act II "Io vo' mia figlia!" ("I want my daughter!"). This confrontation with the courtiers is particularly poignant in this production. The courtiers at this point realize that it is Rigoletto's daughter, not his lover that that Duke is defiling in the adjacent room. "Cortigiani, vil razza dannata," follows, where Rigoletto first curses and threatens the courtiers and then is reduced to pleading and groveling, concluding in "Pietà, signori, pietà". Nucci pauses before the last "pietà" and two courtiers shove into his hands a jester's cap into one hand and a jester scepter into the other, i.e., the courtiers response to Rigoletto's heartbreaking pleas is "you may think that you are a father defending his daughter - you are nothing more than a clown, that's your job description". This directorial touch sums up in one gesture Rigoletto's predicament and kicks it straight into your guts: trapped between a lecherous playboy of a master and the cruelty, cold indifference and inhumanity of the court, the jester is the ultimate victim, clinging to his daughter because of his extreme loneliness, etc., etc. You experience the drama from the inside out in this production; every musical line, figure or chord becomes embedded in the drama with a specific and clear meaning. In a way I recaptured the wonder of discovering this work for the first time. Any relative shortcomings of the singers, real or imagined, become irrelevant within the totality of this experience. The rest is nitpicking. Now for the nitpicking. Nucci's Rigoletto does not need my endorsement, enough said. I think even the naysayers will be won over this time (his interpretation here is different from the one in the antiseptic Zurich blu-ray from 2006). Nino Machaidze (Gilda) was twenty-four here and her Duke (Francesco Demuro) was 30 years old. Their youth, charm and good looks are a big asset. Nino Machaidze is an utterly convincing Gilda, with a rich, full tone and secure passagework (she trills). Francesco Demuro has a small, focused voice; it sounds as if this role is a stretch for him. The Duke is dangerous, but Demuro's Duke is as dangerous as a puppy. His dynamic amplitude (from piano to forte) is limited, but his tone is sweet, his phrasing is elegant and exceptionally graceful and his diction is just superb even for an Italian (from Sardinia). Demuro and Machaidze conclude their act I duet on a high Db; She sings a high Eb in "Caro Nome" but ends it on a high C; he ends his cabaletta "Possente amor" on a high D. Machaidze ends the "Si, vendetta" duet on a ringing high E-flat with Nucci on the A-flat below - they repeat the duet ("Bis! Bis!)" at the footlights. Demuro ends "La donna è mobile" on a high C (and these are just the notes that Verdi did not write). Even though Demuro is more of a tenorino, do not underestimate his talent; he casts his spell insidiously. I found myself searching for his clips on youtube. A few clips were enough to breach my resistance and soon enough una furtiva lagrima negli occhi miei spuntò (I'm not referring to the aria) and I reached for the hanky. I'm sorry, I'm only human, I have feelings, what is it about this Demuro, or am I getting soft in the head? This dolcezza e innocenza, this grace, effortlessness and understatement, not English understatement but an Italian one - check his entry in Wikipedia - he has been performing in public since he was ten. His operatic debut was as Rodolfo in Luisa Miller in 2007 - there is a DVD. At the final curtain call, a complete unknown, he was the only cast member who was showered with flowers (from both sides of the house) - even the soprano did not get any - this is the kind of charmer he is. He is also featured in the ROH Trittico blu-ray as Rinuccio, where you can see another side of his charm. According to his management he is scheduled to sing Alfredo at the MET - that would be a bloodbath, the Met is way too large for his voice, and he does not project like Florez. Even diminutive Parma is too large for him (his body mic saves him), but the future of his career is secured, not only in opera. He already has a Japanese fan club. This blu-ray seems just perfect on repeat viewing. The biggest credit for the success of this production goes to the director(s). This production is based on a 1987 Parma production by Pierluigi Samaritani, who also designed the magnificent sets and costumes. They are works of art in themselves - their traditional style, opulent beauty (achieved with simple means in the court of Mantua) and signature hyperrealism reflect Pierluigi Samaritani's experience as assistant to Franco Zeffirelli, to designer Lila De Nobili and to the painter Giorgio De Chirico. He died in 1994. His student Stefano Vizioli updated that production with some scene changes, smoother transitions helped by modern technology, and above all wonderful psychological work with the actors-singers resulting in a vividly flowing dramaturgy. The rest of the cast is first-rate. Video and sound are good despite the use of body mics.

Esta version de Rigoletto es excelente, con un Leo Nucci magistral

This production of Rigoletto is simply superb. At last we have a new recording with cast and direction that would have pleased the composer Verdi, the librettist, Piave and the author of the novel from which it was taken, Victor Hugo ("Le roi s'amuse" - "The king amuses himself") Changed by Verdi to a duke for political reasons. So much of what passes these days as "new" opera and "modern' approach is nothing but trash. No I don't want to see Romeo & Juliet in the back alley of a butcher shop in Brooklyn. Nor do I want to see Rigoletto done in a Las Vegas gambling parlor. Give some credit to the composer and the poet and what they had in mind. Part of the magic of opera to me is that the work takes you out of reality to a time and place where a tale unfolds with the music bringing all the diverse elements of story and stage to one satifying all encompasing experience. This presentation fulfils that definition. Rigoletto was about Verdi's fifteenth opera. Before he had been one among several talented Italian composers vying for the publics attention. After Rigoletto (the miracle of Rigoletto!) he would be the best and ever after. He had some dozen or more operatic masterpieces yet to come. The stage setting and costumes by Pierluigi Samaritani are just right for suggesting the time and place of the drama. This was from an older production and was revised for the present presentation by Alessandro Cimmarughi. The cast here is ideal for bringing the drama to fruition. First and foremost is the Rigoletto of Leo Nucci. He is a consumate artist now in his 70s but still commanding a pliant effective voice combined with his superior acting skills to be a truly great Rigoletto. He is still recording several productions in the C Major Verdi series and the ones I've heard are all excellent. The Duke as done by Fracesco Demuro is a wonder. He is gifted with a strong secure lyric tenor, a handsome face and facile body so that it is totally believable that the ladies would fall all over him and that one would die in his stead. With the new upclose camera in this age of DVD the days of the 300 lb. tub waddling out to bark his aria and then waddling off are gone; this goes for the park and bark fat ladies also. As one other reviwer noted, my first Rigoletto recording was Jussi Bjorling (greatest Italian tenor of the day though born in Sweden), Robert Merrill and Roberta Peters. I can still hear her "Caro nome che il mio cor" aria. I also wore out that set. In my youth I went to the Met on tour in Detroit and Cleveland and then forty years at Chicago's Lyric Opera so I've heard a lot of Rigoletos. (The best in the past was probably Leonard Warren). In this production the Gilda is the very good coloratura soprano Nino Machaidze. She is charming and a good actress and has great conrol over her beautiful voice and her singing. Not often noted but unforgetable in this production is Sparafucile as done by Marco Spotti. Who can forget that smile on his face when he describes his cutthroat business? The only weak voice in the main cast was the Maddalena of Stefanie Iranyi. All in all, a wonderful production with a wonderful cast. The best now available.

DISLIKE 1: This Blu Ray mastering (apparently by a German company from a High-Definition Source) FAILS in its menu design. The disc is supposed to have the option of Subtitles in several languages (its box confirms this claim). But there is no MENU option that allows ACCESS to a "Subtitles" option. (It has a spoken languages option for the Introduction). I had to print off an Italian-English Libretto to follow the verbal subtleties of the plot. This is false advertising. This shameful. The Vision and the recording of voices is excellent DISLIKE 2 : The orchestra is superbly conducted but drily recorded - almost no ambience - although this improves in the 3rd Act. LIKE 1 - An overwhelmingly superb performance by baritone Leo Nucci in the role of Rigoletto - stunning and moving with gorgeous tessitura, pacing an sense of drama - a showstopper. LIKE 2 - A wonderful Gilda in Nino Machaidze - she is convincing in Act 1 and then becomes a force of nature in Acts 2 & 3. LIKE 3 - Above average leads in Francesco Demuro (Duke); Marco Spotti (Sparafucile); Stefanie Irany (Maddalena) – becoming really impressive at the middle of Act 3 and Roberto Tagliavini (Conte di Monterone) LIKE 4 - Stunning set design and costumes. LIKE 5 - Superb Direction - all the main characters were thoroughly convincing in their acting and stage craft

Léo Nucci le plus magnifique Rigoletto qui soit, j'ai eu le bonheur de le voir sur scène à Liège, à 74 ans, c'est époustouflant, ce DVD est magnifique, à recommander pour les amateurs d'Opéra...

Di questo Rigoletto mi piace tutto, cantanti e regia. Nucci è ancora in perfetta forma, e una brillante Machaidze è entusiasmante nel duetto della Vendetta con Nucci (con tanto di bis), ma sono bravi tutti, anche nel quartetto che prelude alla fine. La regia è tradizionale ma vivace, c'è forse qualche eccesso nella festa iniziale nel palazzo del duca e forse è un po' cupa nella seconda parte. Ma lo spettacolo nel complesso e la musica di Verdi sono veramente godibili.