Did you know Rigoletto was Charlie Chaplin?

Glyndebourne Touring Opera production of Rigoletto: Rigoletto (R) and Gilda (L)

No, I didn’t know either, until I saw the Glyndebourne Touring production of Verdi’s Rigoletto (Norwich, December 2019). The opera was now set in a film studio, with Rigoletto himself dressed in the distinctive guise of the little tramp. Except that the singer playing Rigoletto happened to be about 20 stone and as unlike Charlie Chaplin in physique as you could imagine. The director, Christiane Lutz, appears to be responsible for this interpretation. She states, in the programme:

“We then thought about Charlie Chaplin, an iconic comedian, someone with enough charisma to fill the huge figure of Rigoletto, who worked within the studio system at this time, as the starting point for our staging… When you say ‘Charlie Chaplin’, everyone has an image, an idea in mind, and that richness of association was what we wanted.”

But the more you think about it, the more unlikely the analogy becomes. Chaplin was famous in films as the victim, the little man who suffers from an impersonal and cruel society, and at others’ hands. Rigoletto, in contrast, is someone who is clearly very successful, surrounded and protected by rich people, many of whom resent him for his success. There is nothing the two characters have in common.  Lines such as this would sound very strange coming from Charlie Chaplin:

Rigoletto

Who could harm me? I’m not afraid of them.
No one dare touch someone protected by the Duke.

Gratuitous videos are a commonplace of modern opera productions, and this production has a good example. Glyndebourne shows the three-act opera in two parts, with an interval between. Before the start of each part, there is a short video in which someone (I assume an elderly Chaplin, although uncredited) talks about the importance of moving forward, not looking back. These videos, together with the amateurish mime of an actor writing the word “forwards” in a circle, do not help us understand or appreciate the plot. In what way does Rigoletto look forward? It seems to me he spends most of his time worrying about the curse put on him - not very forward-looking.

There were other aspects of this production that left me guessing. For example, whose daughter is Gilda? The Count of Monterone, according to the synopsis, “confronts the Duke for seducing his daughter”. In this production, the daughter is seen on stage with a baby – and Rigoletto is seen to take the baby. So who exactly seduced the Count’s daughter? Or is Rigoletto acting honourably in taking responsibility for the Duke’s transgressions?

One problem with this production was that I didn’t get much of an idea of Rigoletto as evil. Perhaps Nikoloz Lagvilava, the baritone playing Rigoletto, simply doesn’t do nasty very well. In this production, he appeared as the wounded bear: a big, ungainly animal ridiculed by his peers. Theatre is supposed to deal with archetypes. I was lost by the archetypes depicted here.

Complexities of the story

To be fair to the production team, Rigoletto is a rather confused opera. Some of the story makes perfect sense, and can be readily grasped by the audience. The coup de theatre when Rigoletto discovers he has had his own daughter murdered is stunning; the moment he hears the tune of La donna e mobile in the background, he realises the dead body in the blanket in front of him is clearly not his intended victim, the duke. But other key points are not at all clear. Is the Duke a good or a bad man? At the start of the opera, he is the archetypal seducer:

Duke

If today one woman pleases me

Perhaps it’ll be another one tomorrow.

Constancy, tyrant of the heart,

We detest like a disease.

Yet later in the opera, the Duke appears in all sincerity as a man converted to constancy for love of Gilda:

Duke

She who first kindled in my heart

The flame of a constant love

She so pure, whose modest expression

Almost convinced me to a virtuous life!

The opera, and this production, would suggest the Duke is entirely sincere in his affections towards Gilda. Later in the opera, he is seen trying to seduce Sparafucile’s sister Maddalena. Perhaps it was just me, but I interpreted this not as the actions of a serial seducer, but as the ravings of a man who has just lost his true love. However, it's something of a condemnation of the plot that it's still not clear after I have seen Rigoletto performed several times. Of course, Verdi’s operas are melodramas, which means there is little room for complexity of character; it is perhaps trying to fit an over-complex plot into the opera format. I would see this as a limitation of the opera itself, not of this production.

Unnecessary action in this production

There are two actors in this production whose job it is to swan around and ‘interpret’ the music in some way (apart from singing - they are silent roles). Only one actor is credited in the programme, so perhaps the second actor appeared, like the extras in Noises Off, just in case the first one didn’t manage to appear on stage at the right time. Helpfully, the two of them killed each other off just before the final curtain. Otherwise, we could have been there all night.