Oliver Mears’ 2021 production of Rigoletto opens with an emphatic nod to the original target of Verdi’s opera, the historical Vincenzo I, perhaps the most reprehensible of the Gonzaga Dukes of Mantua. A womaniser and murderer, Vincenzo was nevertheless a generous patron of the arts, employing Rubens and commissioning Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Here the curtain rises on a still-life tableau, Fabiana Piccioli’s chiaroscuro lighting visibly inspired by Caravaggio, revealing Mears’ art-loving Duke posing as an armour-clad minotaur, sword poised for the kill. Later we see him leafing through folders of Renaissance art, his tastes, it would appear, leaning toward soft porn and rape imagery.
While Simon Lima Holdsworth’s stonework set suggests Renaissance Mantua, it quickly becomes apparent that this is a court where dress-up is the order of the day. The Duke’s followers are decked out in flamboyant loungewear, modern in feel but designed by Ilona Karas to echo their master’s artistic tastes. They are a singularly rotten lot, regaling him in fawning dances to choreography by Anna Morrissey. In the wake of the Epstein files, it all too readily evokes a gilded world of privilege, entrenched misogyny and complicit abuse.
