Rigoletto
Millennium Centre, Cardiff

OPERA-GOERS were aghast to find out on the opening night of Welsh National Opera’s Rigoletto that the company is facing a funding crisis which could see its doors closed. 

The 30-strong chorus are members of the performers’ union Equity and demonstrated outside the Millennium Centre against cuts by the Arts Council of Wales and Arts Council England.

The company’s response to its reduced budget was to cut back its touring schedule and remove the full-time orchestra and chorus, cutting pay and hours and leading to redundancies.

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Both Equity and the Musicians Union members in WNO had voted for industrial action but called off the strike due to close the opening performance of Rigoletto after positive talks. The two unions’ members demonstrated outside the concert hall explaining why they were taking industrial action and urging the public to sign the petition against the cuts.

When the opera started members of the orchestra were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan Save our WNO, as were members of the chorus during the triumphant curtain call.

And what a loss it would be if WNO is forced to curtail its programme of operas after a stunning production of Verdi’s masterpiece about betrayal and revenge. This was a deeply grotesque portrayal of life in a dissolute court and the debauched love life of Raffaele Abete’s Duke in a new production setting the action back in the time it was meant to portray. Italian tenor Abete was called in at short notice to sing the role and played and sang a dissolute Duke with aplomb.

Director Adele Thomas is to take over the reins of the troubled opera company as general director but her debut production as a director shows the company will not be short of inspiration from her creativity at staging well-worn and familiar operas.

The opening scene with two near-naked men fighting each other on a large table set the scene for a series of grotesque scenes that captured vividly the decadence of the Duke’s court. Daniel Luis de Vicente’s court jester Rigoletto is repugnant and is happy to dish out abuse to others and laugh at the misuse of women by his master.

When the Duke’s courtiers decide to take Rigoletto down a peg after his barbed jests upset Paul Carey Jones’s Monterone, they mistakenly think he has a mistress and decide to kidnap her for their depraved master to enjoy, and the twist in the plot is that this is Rigoletto’s heavily protected daughter Gilda, who he has kept hidden from the court. Sorayah Mafi is sublime as the young and innocent Gilda and the purity of her singing makes her the only engaging character.

The Duke has spotted Gilda on the way to church and pretends to be a penniless student to gain her trust and seduce her. Mafi’s exuberance at being told the student is in love with her was a fabulous moment as she danced around the stage in glee, but matters take a dark turn after her kidnap when she finds out her student is the Duke who takes his pleasure and casually abandons her.

Rigoletto vows vengeance and hires French bass Nathanael Tavernier’s Sparafucile, a paid assassin, to kill the Duke. Tavernier’s killer is a truly frightening character with his white make-up, leering smile and moves chillingly around the stage.

This is a superb production and will thrill and repulse in equal measure, but is well worth a visit. 

Tours until November 16 and returns to Cardiff’s Millennium Centre in February 2025. For more information see www.wno.org.uk.