Day 087: Tonight it’sa Italian—Rigoletto
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day 87
— Tonight it’sa Italian—Rigoletto
28-October-1971
(Thur.)
TRANSCRIPT
Typical day. Starting to put in a routine and seem to
be getting a lot done. However, my practicing is the
one thing that always angers me. Today, it didn’t
seem to get any better.
Went to
Rigoletto, by Verdi. I enjoyed it.
The famous
“La Donna Mobile” was sort of funny. I
didn’t go for all of the music.
One problem when going to a concert is that it cuts
out most of my studying and playing guitar, which I
would do at night.
REFLECTIONS
The blog says it all today. Just a typical day. At
night, I get to Verdi’s opera,
Rigoletto. It’sa
Italian night.
Verdi.
Giuseppe Verdi
was a
successful, prolific, highly regarded,
19th-century Italian operatic composer. (That's a
lot of adjectives.) His famous works
include
La traviata, Il trovatore, Aida,
Rigoletto, Falstaff and many
others. Verdi is also know for his famous
Requiem.
The
opera.
Rigoletto
is the
story of a hunchback jester in the Duke’s court,
who has a curse placed on him by noblemen, just
because he was mocking them. Come on, chill dudes.
After some twists and turns, and a kidnapping, the
opera ends with the curse on Rigoletto coming
true. The most famous aria in Rigoletto,
“La donna mobile” (you've
heard it), has the Duke singing about women, after he
loses his love—Gilda, who is none other than
Rigoletto’s daughter. Yes, these opera plots are
thick and heavy, but always enjoyable.
Again, I regret that I can’t include audio selections
as part of this blog. It would be so cool.
Till tomorrow.
John
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