September 15, 2012
Giuseppe Verdi’s “Rigoletto” by SF Opera simulcast live at the AT&T Ballpark in SF. Admission: FREE!
They estimated there were 3,000 + people attending the performance at the War Memorial House and 30,000 + people watching from the ballpark. There was an opera-house/ballpark theme as the cast took their bows in Giants tee-shirts and the main character, Željko Lucic (Rigoletto), came out with a baseball bat for his bow. Fun.
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Rigoletto (from Wikipedia)
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851. Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere and is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Verdi’s middle-to-late career. Its tragic story revolves around the licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto’s beautiful daughter Gilda. The opera’s original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to the curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter had been seduced by the Duke with Rigoletto’s encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda likewise falls in love with the Duke and eventually sacrifices her life to save him from the assassins hired by her father.