The piece I chose to be passionate about is the opera Rigoletto. My identification with this opera is for a most intriguing and unexpected reason—I have been listening to a particular part of it repeatedly before, since my elementary school years, in a video game (Counter-Strike, the Italy map), without knowing its original context; therefore, when I actually watched the opera, I immediately recognized the segment, called “E Il Sol Dell'anima,” and consequently felt a great wave of awe and satisfaction. Besides this fact, Rigoletto is still a very fun opera, with captivating plot and great music.
Rigoletto was written by Giuseppe Verdi, in the 1850’s, and was considered his first real opera masterpiece among his mid-to-late career works. The story is about Rigoletto, the Duke of Mantua’s jester, who consistently picks on the Duke’s court members with “a tongue like an assassin’s dagger.” The Duke of Mantua, a notorious womanizer, seduces Rigoletto’s daughter, who was then kidnapped by the Duke’s court members who had a grudge on Rigoletto for his insults. Rigoletto hires an assassin to kill the Duke, and through a series of mishaps Rigoletto’s daughter dies in place of the Duke, with the Duke singing away, “woman is fickle…”
The opera is a great sarcastic masterpiece—there exist several satirical plot points within the opera that should be examined in detail. The major notion is the inconsistencies between Duke’s attitudes towards women and of women. Being an irresponsible womanizer, the Duke scores with various women; in fact, at the beginning of the opera, he sings about what a wonderful nature of life it is to be able to have pleasure with as many women as possible. Throughout the play, he woos Rigoletto’s daughter, who was a well-protected and innocent woman. She gives him her heart, unaware of his vile nature with women. Later, he seduces the assassin’s sister, who in turn pleads for his life to her brother, who eventually killed Rigoletto’s daughter as a substitute for his planned death ordered by Rigoletto himself. The great irony in this is that as this twisted plotline goes on—the most innocent one dies, and the most responsible one lives, singing “woman is fickle” because according to him, women are not to be trusted in romance.
To further the irony of this “coincidence,” “woman is fickle” had a most catchy tune. It was prospected that the audience at that time likely left the opera house whistling “woman is fickle,” as opposed to some of the other melodies, such as ones where they expressed love between man and woman, father and daughter, etc. Why is it so? Why is it that the most hypocritical themed song was the most attention-keeping and popular? Does this imply somewhat the value assumptions of their society concerning relationships between men and women? A deeper social introspection should have been called for.
Another satirical point relates to Rigoletto—his character flaws are ultimately responsible for his daughter’s death, a devastating tragic event to him. He meets the assassin and immediately identifies with him, saying that the assassin kills with swords while he kills with words. His vile attitude and fun-poking toward the court members of the Duke is one of the crucial causes for his daughter’s initial abduction. His hatred, which leads him to the hiring of the assassin, was the second key factor for the tragedy. His over-protection of his daughter, which resulted in his daughter left undefended (too innocent) to the cunning and experienced (at wooing women) Duke, is arguably the reason why she fell hopelessly in love with a man who has no conscience about true love—leading to her eventual sacrifice for the Duke (even though she already knew the Duke’s true nature at the point, that the Duke was wooing the assassin’s sister) and her death. Rigoletto is a typical tragic hero—eventually paying big time for the consequences of his flaws which were proven fatal.
An argument to make at this point, is whether this series of events that lead to the eventual catastrophe is strictly a logical result of the character flaws, or is it fate, and these things happen regardless of what the characters’ traits are? This is an intriguing thought because the answer to this question usually directly affects some people’s attitudes in everyday lives. The former belief usually results in a more responsible and up-beat attitude—the belief that one has the power to influence his/her own fate. The latter is more passive—leaving the path into the hands of the supernatural.
Being a firm disbeliever in fate, I resonate with the first idea greatly, which is ultimately why I like the opera—it packs the message that if one acts in faulty ways, there will be consequences. I personally identify with the theme of the opera, which was quite impressive for the age in history when fate was still a dominant force influencing people’s lives.
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