IU Opera to perform Verdi's 'Rigoletto'

Absent for the last three years from the Musical Arts Center during the school year season, the work of Giuseppe Verdi will return on the 100th anniversary of his death with his tragic opera "Rigoletto."\nThe opera, based on the play "Le roi s'amuse" by Victor Hugo, contains some of the most recognizable music in the entire opera canon.\nKnown as Grand Opera, the style is opera in its most well-known form with romantic music, melodramatic plots and tragic characters.\nRigoletto, a jester in the court of the Duke of Mantua, has a brash personality and is mocking to the Duke's friends and guests, making him unpopular. The objects of his ridicule vow to wreak vengence upon Rigoletto by having Rigoletto's daughter fall victim to a roving philanderer.\nRigoletto then makes murderous plans for revenge, which lead to his tragic demise.\nThis production utilizes the work of guest director Tito Capobianco, who is said to have suggested the idea to Leonard Bernstein to write his "Mass." Capobianco, a stage director with a career spanning five decades, started the Verdi Festival in San Diego and founded the Juilliard Opera Center.\nProfessor David Effron conducts the Philharmonic Orchestra in the production. The set was designed by emeritus professor Max Röthlisberger, who also designed the set for the last IU production, "Faust"