Verdi’s Rigo­let­to is a clas­sic, and deserved­ly so.  The sto­ry was based on a Vic­tor Hugo play, adapt­ed some­what to avoid cen­sor­ship.  Hugo, by all accounts, was not at all hap­py that his play was being pla­gia­rised (and by an Ital­ian!) until he attend­ed and was amazed by a per­for­mance.  Musi­cal­ly it was rather rev­o­lu­tion­ary, being more a num­ber of duets than con­ven­tion­al arias.  The stand­out solo, “La don­na è mobile”, was such a hit after the pre­miere that it was sung on the streets, and more recent­ly it’s eas­i­ly recog­nis­able in com­put­er games, films, and foot­ball chants.  A mov­ing tragedy, and a sub­tle­ly caus­tic social com­men­tary, Rigo­let­to is a good choice for any com­pa­ny.

Eter­ni­ty Oper­a’s mis­sion is to make opera acces­si­ble to every­one, and they do this by stag­ing it in small­er, cheap­er venues.  Han­nah Play­house is a ver­sa­tile space to work in despite its size.  It was sur­pris­ing, then, that the set was so min­i­mal — a cou­ple of con­crete walls, door­ways, a cur­tain.  The cham­ber orches­tra set into the stage at one side looked a lit­tle cramped, but seemed cheer­ful.

I assumed that the bare set would be com­ple­ment­ed by lush cos­tume, or that it would meta­mor­phose through clever prop use.  That nev­er even­tu­at­ed; the cho­rus for the most part wore a mot­ley assort­ment of hood­ed cloaks and masks, the leads wore noth­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly spe­cial.   The only notable cos­tume was that of Rigo­let­to, who changed from clown­ish short red trousers and sus­penders in the first half to drab browns and greys in the sec­ond to reflect the char­ac­ter’s jour­ney.  There was also some rather nice floor light­ing, cast­ing the play­ers’ shad­ows onto the walls dra­mat­i­cal­ly at appro­pri­ate points.  Still, I felt the pro­duc­tion was visu­al­ly want­i­ng.  Per­haps the design was lim­it­ed by bud­get.

Matthew Ross direct­ed the orches­tra deci­sive­ly, and they did a pret­ty good job of keep­ing up.  A small­er space can be dynam­i­cal­ly prob­lem­at­ic for an ensem­ble, as every­thing needs to be scaled down.  There may have been a wob­ble or two from the horns in the qui­etest moments, but for the most part, they respond­ed well to the addi­tion­al chal­lenge.

The cho­rus was sol­id and clear, although they could have had more to play with in the way of props or direc­tion — they most­ly stood around, with a lit­tle awk­ward danc­ing in the open­ing scene.  Orene Tai stood out as Count Marul­lo, a small part but an impres­sive pres­ence, and the mur­der­ous brother/sister duo of Robert Lind­say and Jess Segal were love­ly to watch and hear.  Lind­say, espe­cial­ly, I hope to hear more of — the part of Spara­fu­cile does­n’t offer much oppor­tu­ni­ty to shine vocal­ly, but his res­o­nant bass voice should promise a bright future.  Segal played Mad­dale­na bril­liant­ly, although she was a lit­tle qui­et when singing ensem­ble.

Boyd Owen as the Duke was excel­lent.  His mel­liflu­ous tenor was exact­ly what the char­ac­ter need­ed and his ren­di­tion of “La don­na è mobile”, if a lit­tle awk­ward in the Eng­lish trans­la­tion, was play­ful and snarky.  He clear­ly was enjoy­ing a great part and he did a damn good job.

Han­nah Catrin-Jones, though, as Gil­da, had a rougher time.  The part is pret­ty two-dimen­sion­al, as Gilda’s pur­pose is basi­cal­ly to waft limply about as the over-pro­tect­ed vir­gin daugh­ter of Rigo­let­to, but there are oppor­tu­ni­ties to show real courage and defi­ance.  Sad­ly, those choic­es weren’t made in this pro­duc­tion, and I can’t lay that blame on Catrin-Jones.  Her sopra­no is round and clear, and while some of the high­er notes may have been a reach in the first half, she warmed up in the sec­ond.

The star, with­out a doubt, was James Clay­ton.  He’s just a gen­uine delight to watch, espe­cial­ly in such a rich char­ac­ter.  He’s a bril­liant phys­i­cal actor, and his Rigo­let­to was easy to like, and even eas­i­er to pity, as what lit­tle he had and every­thing he loved was destroyed by his own jeal­ous machi­na­tions.  Clay­ton’s beau­ti­ful bari­tone deliv­ery is just as thought­ful as his char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion, and he’s not afraid to play with it to add depth to the part.  He made the whole pro­duc­tion for me.

I’ve heard a rumour that Eter­ni­ty are fin­ish­ing up, and I think that’s a real shame.  Whether they achieve their goal of bring­ing opera to a wider demo­graph­ic or not, they do cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for tal­ent­ed singers who might oth­er­wise not move out­side of the cho­rus or get to play the most sub­stan­tial parts.   I hope they can con­tin­ue to do that.