Oliver Mears’ innovative and thought-provoking production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, first seen in 2021, casts an intriguing spotlight on a work that can too easily be taken for granted. Setting the first two acts in a non-naturalistic, allegorical space (designed by Simon Lima Holdsworth) in which the court of the Duke of Mantua is distinguishable from Rigoletto’s house only by his sumptuous murals – he may be a cad but with Titian on his walls he has good taste – Mears blurs the boundaries between artifice and reality.
Iconography is essential to his conception. The action opens with a coup de théâtre: a tableau vivant based on Caravaggio’s Martyrdom of St Matthew, stunningly lit by Fabiana Piccioli. The martyr is Gilda, sacrificed on the altar of her father Rigoletto’s thirst for vengeance. Equally central is play-acting: the courtiers are modern-day partygoers masquerading in Renaissance gear (imaginatively designed by Ilona Karas).
