Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto by Francesco Maria Piave after Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse

Opera in three acts
The first performance of the first opera in Verdi's legendary "trilogia popolare" at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice was preceded by a tricky battle with the censor. After all, the play by Victor Hugo on which it was based, about the cynical hedonism of an aristocrat, had been a hot potato throughout Europe since 1832, when it was banned immediately after its first performance in Paris. Verdi was interested less in criticism of the ruling classes and more in the tragedy of the court jester whose existence is devastated. The deformed entertainer in a world of men who consume women pulls out all the stops in his sarcasm and yet believes that he will remain unharmed by his public actions if he merely separates them cleanly from his private happiness. But when his daughter, imprisoned in a remote location for her own protection, follows her own longing, she becomes the victim of his double existence. A lonely, pitiable clown? "An amoral petty bourgeois man", thinks Arpad Schilling, "who dreams of innocence. A husband mourning for his wife and filled with a thirst for revenge. A great actor to whom success is more important than his own daughter. The fool of a noble lord who has been cheated by his own happiness. Verdi can do what Shakespeare does: He can tell a story in such a way as to make us shudder."

In Italian with German surtitles

New production

Casts

Conductor Fabio Luisi 17./20. July 2013  
Marco Armiliato 24. July 2013, 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
Stefano Ranzani 12./15./18. Oct. 2013  
Production Árpád Schilling   
Set and Costumes Márton Ágh   
Lighting Christian Kass   
Dramaturgy Miron Hakenbeck   
Chorus Stellario Fagone   

Il Duca di Mantova Joseph Calleja 17./20./24. July, 12./15./18. Oct. 2013, 3./6./9. May 2014  
Piero Pretti 26./30. Apr. 2014  
Rigoletto Franco Vassallo 17./20./24. July 2013, 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
George Petean 12./15./18. Oct. 2013  
Gilda Patricia Petibon 17. July 2013  
Patrizia Ciofi 20./24. July 2013  
Aleksandra Kurzak 12./15./18. Oct. 2013  
Erin Morley 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
Sparafucile + Monterone Dimitry Ivashchenko 17./20./24. July 2013  
Rafal Siwek 12./15./18. Oct. 2013, 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
Maddalena + Giovanna Nadia Krasteva 17./20./24. July 2013  
Alisa Kolosova 12./15./18. Oct. 2013  
Oksana Volkova 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
Marullo Tim Kuypers 17./20./24. July 2013  
Andrea Borghini 12./15./18. Oct. 2013, 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
Borsa Matteo Francesco Petrozzi 17./20./24. July 2013  
Dean Power 12./15./18. Oct. 2013, 26./30. Apr., 3./6./9. May 2014  
Il Conte di Ceprano Christian Rieger   
La Contessa di Ceprano Iulia Maria Dan   
Usciere Goran Jurić   
Paggio della Duchessa Yulia Sokolik   

The Bavarian State Orchestra
The Chorus of the Bavarian State Opera