The first performance of Rigoletto was staged 160 years ago, at La Fenice opera house in Venice in 1851. He added: "Being able to take the part of Rigoletto in this live film, precisely in the settings that Verdi chose and worked so stubbornly to bring off, resisting the censors, will be a privilege." But Andrea said that he wasn't looking for a baritone, but rather for the Rigoletto whom I, Plácido Domingo, could bring to life," he said. "When Andrea Andermann invited me to interpret the part of Rigoletto, I replied that there were so many good baritones in the world who could sing it. "This is the first opera that I heard the character of Borsa is the first role that I sang."ĭespite notching 128 opera roles as a tenor by March 2008 – making him the most prolific tenor in the world – Domingo is set to perform as a baritone. "It certainly is one of the most moving roles that exists, and I'm not sure that I won't be overcome by the tears that will well up in my throat when I sing it," Domingo said. Yet while the production is heavily influenced by film techniques, opera fans will get their leading man with the casting of Domingo, one of opera's biggest stars. The BBC will broadcast the production over two nights on the weekend of 4 and 5 September, with further live music, from the proms, following the opera's opening night. The crew includes an Italian film director – the award-winning cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, who has won Oscars for his work on films including Apocalypse Now and The Last Emperor – and up to 100 co-producers. The scale of the three-act production, which is being made in partnership with Italian television channel Rai, is also suggestive of a blockbuster rather than a theatre production.
The orchestral sound is live but comes from a different location so getting everything to work together is going to be very complicated." We've used the real locations featured in the opera, such as the Ducal hall in Mantua, and will be following the appropriate times of day. She added: "It's an enormous production and totally unique.
It's a complex thing to do and will be an extraordinary experience to watch." "It's very daunting because the cinema cameras are on tracks and move swiftly with the performers as they move between different rooms and outside. "The opera will be performed as if the location was the stage so they move about the rooms, as in a feature film," said Jan Younghusband, the BBC's commissioning editor for music and events.
And producers promise an experience more akin to a feature film than a standard stage production. The opera tells the story of court jester Rigoletto's attempts to protect his daughter, Gilda, from the lustful Duke of Mantua despite a curse placed on him by Count Monterone, the father of another of the duke's conquests.