• Tracks

Based on Victor Hugo's Le Roi s'amuse, Verdi's Rigoletto centres on the curse of a father on the father of the title, the court jester to the Duke of Mantua. The climax of the action comes in the third act. Gilda, the beloved daughter of Rigoletto, has been abducted by Rigoletto's enemies at court and seduced by the Duke, for whose murder Rigoletto has hired an assassin, Sparafucile. The scene is by the banks of the River Mincio, where Rigoletto and Gilda wait outside a twostorey house. The Duke appears, disguised as an ordinary officer, and enters the house, asking Sparafucile for wine and for a room. He is joined by Sparafucile's sister Maddalena, while Sparafucile leaves them together, going out into the street to ask Rigoletto if this is the man. In the quartet the Duke declares his love for Maddalena, while Gilda, observing the scene from outside, is heart-broken at her lover's faithlessness, to which Rigoletto draws her attention. In what follows Rigoletto tells his daughter to go home and disguise herself in man's clothes, ready to leave the city. Sparafucile is persuaded by Maddalena to spare the Duke, killing instead the first man to enter. In the event this is Gilda, willing to sacrifice herself for her lover. Rigoletto returns, ready to receive the body of his victim, and takes the murdered body in a sack, prepared to throw it into the nearby river. At this moment he hears the voice of the Duke from within the house, and realizes he has been tricked. He opens the sack and in a flash of lightning sees the face of his daughter Gilda.