Wellies and sequins: Rigoletto at the MET

Wellies and sequins were in abundance tonight for Rigoletto.

Diana and I agree with Plotkin that Rigoletto would make for an excellent first opera.

In tonight's performance at the Metropolitan Opera the cast was fantastic. Including the understudy for the Duke of Mantua who was a terrific singer and actor, handsome and amazingly tall for a tenor. I can't tell you his name as I tore that bit of the understudy notice off to throw away my gum.

Gilda (Nino Machaidze) , Rigoletto (Giovanni Meoni) & Sparafucile (Stefan Kocán) were all superb. Maddalena (Kirsten Chávez) while bodacious was not a strong singer.

Many times through out the night I thought the orchestra was not in sync with the singing. That was an odd first for the MET. But my biggest complaint were the dark and grim sets. To give you an idea the picture above was of the brightest of all the sets. At times it was really hard to see the performers. And we were in the fourth row!

I think "La donna è mobile" is so catchy a song must have been the precursor to a solid gold single. Everyone was humming on my walk to the subway.

And because it's the subway after the opera, my ride home was not uneventful. I ended up sitting next to a guy with a ventriloquists dummy who was doing a full routine with multiple voices.

Addio... vivrà immutabile
L'affetto mio per te.

Meridita