“Theatre Royal Nottingham was the venue for the Opera North production of Rigoletto. It is Victor Hugo’s tale of a misshapen court jester earning his living in the service of a philandering Duke and his party loving - partner swopping cronies. It is a tale of partygate, entitlement and prejudice.
Rigoletto, the jester has a secret. Locked away in his house is his daughter, now a young woman who is kept from the lascivious notice of the Duke and his friends. The friends believe, however, that the young woman is Rigoletto’s mistress and they kidnap her to pleasure the Duke. Rigoletto believes that his personal and tragic loss is the result of a curse laid on him by a priest for his ungodly behaviour in the service of the court. The play revolves around the extreme demands of forgiveness contrasted against revenge. Often regarded as a period piece the director Femi Elofowoju Jr’s is responding to the Court Jester’s ‘otherness’ by casting black artists Eric Greene as Rigoletto and Jasmine Habersham his daughter Gilda. Greene achieves a range of emotional force at once desperate and at another gently adoring and protective of his daughter when she is returned to him ghastly in a wig and faux wedding dress after her rape by the Duke.
Greene expresses his grief through vulnerable twitches and suppressed trembling contrasted with his earlier powerful tux strutting presence as one of the party animals. Habersham as Gilda is endlessly forgiving of the Duke. These two people are tortured by the treatment they receive. Their performances wrung the audience out to immense applause.
Rae Smith’s designs house the different events and places in a squared off space offering flexibility and fluid changes in the different scenes. The production is set in tatty wealth tarted up with neon and tasteless bling Ines contrasts with urban decay Rigoletto’s home is all black exoticism with plants and bright balloons, a swing and a gigantic zebra all of which might playfully demonstrated the youth and childlikeness of Gilda but instead, Gilda stretched provocatively along the back of the zebra innocently coming of age and filling us with dread.
The whole cast was thrilling, Willard White as Monterone pronounces his curse, Callum Thorpe as Sparafucile is both attractive and repulsive. Roman Arndt as the Duke in his tight jeans grows in presence and uncaring.
Garry Walker conducts his journey with the singers before launching back into steering the orchestra along the course of expanses of emotional connection.
A brilliant post Covid evening.”
