Dear Reader:

Welcome to Utah Opera’s On-Line Lecture for Rigoletto. You will notice that there are a number of pages for you to access, so I thought I should explain the content of each of them, so you can click on the ones that interest you and ignore the ones that don’t!
   
The Story is just that. It’s much more detailed than the Synopsis, but it has the added advantage that selected moments are linked to a video performance of that particular scene, so you can read about it, then see it and hear it.

Giuseppe Verdi is a brief biography of the composer.

Francesco Maria Piave is an even briefer biography of the librettist.

Victor Hugo is a biography (brief – couldn’t you guess?) of the French author who wrote the play on which the opera was based.

Background tells you how and why the opera came to be written.

The Music deals with certain aspects of the score from a musician’s point of view. Perhaps I should rate this section MW (Musician’s Warning) because it contains discussions of certain scenes that might be too technical for a non-musician – though I tried to keep the NMs in mind!!

Your Guide,
Paul Dorgan