Airs Saturday, February 16 at 12 noon. The 2012-13 Metropolitan Opera Radio Broadcast season continues with a live broadcast of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer’s new production moves the opera’s tragic events from a decadent 16th-century Italian court to the glitzy, depraved setting of Las Vegas circa 1960. Serbian baritone Željko Lučić sings the title character, here a world-weary comedian. German soprano Diana Damrau is Gilda, Rigoletto’s innocent daughter. And Polish tenor Piotr Beczala sings the Duke, portrayed as an amoral lounge singer. Slovakian bass Štefan Kocán is the assassin-for-hire Sparafucile, and Belarussian mezzo-soprano Oksana Volkova makes her network broadcast debut as his seductive sister, Maddalena. Italian conductor Michele Mariotti, who made his Met debut earlier this season, conducts his first company performances of the Verdi masterwork. Rigoletto will be heard live over the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera International Radio Network at 12 p.m. CT on Saturday, February 16.
Metropolitan Opera: Verdi’s Rigoletto
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