Rigoletto - English National Opera

This is ENO's "new" Rigoletto as they have superseded the Jonathan Miller production set in the 1950s.  The Miller version was fun and it worked, I am not so sure about the new one. <<http://www.eno.org/rigoletto>>

"New" is a relative term here.  It's new to ENO, but this Rigoletto has been seen in Toronto in 2011  and at the Lyric Opera, Chicago in 2000.  It is set in a Victorian gentlemen's club and all the action takes place in the one room.  I am not a stickler for different settings for different scenes, but this unity of place made the story garbled in parts and I am really not sure why Rigoletto spends part of one scene in a chair at the front of the stage under a scarf.  Is he not there?  Is he part of the action but removed from it?  Is it just to remind us who he is?

It worries me when in a serious opera some of the nuances of the production elicit sniggers from the audience.  Should they know better or is it a failing of the mise en scène?

However, it was a good night musically.  The cast was strong and the chorus of courtiers rousing.  Barry Banks as the Duke sang well and carried of the 'big hit' (La donna è mobile) very well.  Anna Christy as Gilda, Rigoletto's daughter, had a good voice and acted well.  A couple of times I found her upper notes a bit shrill, but that could just be my ears!  Quinn Kelsey as Rigoletto was excellent.  His torment at the end, when he finds Gilda dead, was moving (although he did fling her around like a rag doll for a while!).

Despite the sniggering, the audience loved it.  The applause at the final curtain loud and sustained.

One small gripe, yet again the running time in the programme and the actual time the curtain fell differed substantially.  If my memory serves me well, this time there was an over-run of 10-15 minutes.