Arts Alive San Antonio

BY JASMINA WELLINGHOFF, Editor

What better way to inaugurate spring and a return to normal life than by staging one of greatest operatic masterpieces in history – Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto. And that’s exactly what Opera San Antonio has chosen to do. The beloved opera will be staged with a 52-member orchestra in the pit, a 21-member chorus and prominent, nationally known vocalists in the main roles.

“It feels amazing!” said general and artistic director E. Loren Meeker who had just moved to San Antonio to start her new job when the pandemic changed the performing arts landscape everywhere, including here in the Alamo City. “That we are finally at the point that we can have a full-scale production with an orchestra, with a chorus, on a beautiful set, is really extraordinary.”

Verdi is easily the best known and loved opera composer who authored a number of famous operas full of beautiful melodies – referred to as “arias’ – that people recognize even if they are not operagoers, she said. “But this work, Rigoletto, is one of his most fantastic and well-known compositions.” Just about everyone has heard the famous La Donna e Mobile aria.

The opera’s story is a tragic one. Rigoletto is the court jester at the court of the Duke of Mantua who is a womanizer and abuser of women. Rigoletto goes along with the master’s abuses of power until his own daughter, Gilda, is not only seduced by the handsome duke but actually falls in love with him. The result is a horrible tragedy.

The story was inspired by French novelist Victor Hugo’s, play titled Le Roi s’amuse, about a licentious king of France and the king’s jester’s innocent young daughter.But Verdi and his librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, had to fight censors when they tried to adapt the tale for the operatic stage. Attacking a monarch was not politically correct at the time. (Austria ruled that part of Italy and just about every European country was a monarchy at that time.) The two artists eventually settled on a duke as their villain, which apparently satisfied the police.

“This opera is musically just hit after hit, after hit, combined with an extraordinary story,” said Meeker. “It’s a not-to-miss opera!”

According to OSA’s music director and conductor, Francesco Milioto, Verdi knew he had created a hit with La Donna e Mobile and he, Verdi, tried hard to keep it under wraps until the premiere, which took place in Venice in1851. “He did all he could to prevent the melodies from getting out to the public before opening night,” said Milioto.

In addition to La Donna e Mobile, these hits include Caro Nome, sung by Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda after she falls in love with the duke. Milioto also mentioned an “unbelievable” duet for Gilda and her father, and, of course, the double duets of Act III during which Gilda and Rigoletto sing their music and lyrics while the duke and another character, Maddalena, sing theirs. Though the sounds and melodies are gorgeous, the duets also fit in the evolving story of these characters. “And it all comes together!” said the conductor. Though he knows this opera well, having worked on it multiple times, it is clear from the way he speaks about it, that Milioto is still in awe of Verdi’s genius. “Not only did he write incredible melodies, he also wrote incredible orchestrations and had an incredible sense of dramatic pacing. No wonder that 170 years after these musical gems were written, we still love them,” he noted.

To make it all come alive on stage, OSA has brought to town a number of outstanding soloists, gathered a 21-member chorus and assembled a 52-member orchestra of local and regional musicians, some of whom are members – or former members – of the San Antonio Symphony.

Rigoletto will be portrayed by Canadian baritone James Westman, who has performed with just about every opera company in America from the San Francisco Opera to the Houston Grand Opera. And now, for the first time with Opera San Antonio. It will not be his first Rigoletto. His Gilda will be sung by Andrianna Chuchman who recently appeared in that role at the Metropolitan Opera when she replaced the originally cast soprano who was unable to sing due to illness. Santiago Ballerini will be the Duke of Mantua. Several San Antonio singers will appear in smaller parts.

The Rigoletto production that San Antonians will see this week was originally created as a co-production between three opera companies: Boston Lyric Opera, the Atlanta Opera and Opera Omaha. Sharing production is not uncommon in the opera world given the cost of mounting a production from scratch. If you count all behind-the-scenes artists and staff, in addition to stage performers and musicians in the orchestra pit, there are 100-200 people pulling together to make a grand opera production a visual, musical and emotional experience that it should be, noted Meeker who is the stage director of OSA’s Rigoletto.

So, it is extraordinary for a company like OSA, that has a staff of five for most of the year, to reign in all of this amazing talent, combined with local unions and crews, and orchestras and artists to put together the resources to present grand opera,” said the director.

And she has a message for all reading this: “Come with your ears, eyes and hearts open, and what you’ll witness is an extraordinary combination of palpable energy that is unique to being part of a live performance… All your senses will be brilliantly overwhelmed with the music and story of this opera, and we just can’t wait to share it.”
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May 5 at 7:30 p.m. and May 7 at 7:30 p.m.; Tobin Center for the Performing Arts, 100 Auditorium Circle; tickets start at $40; A pre-show lecture at 6:30, free with show ticket; tickets@tobincenter.org, 210-223-8624.