On Saturday, May 31, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion opened its doors to an audience cloaked in elegance and humming with anticipation. LA Opera’s new staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto delivered on every promise of passion, pain, and poetic justice. It didn’t just entertain—it haunted, healed, and reminded us why opera, like love, endures.

The evening began not with a downbeat, but with a masterclass. Maestro James Conlon, LA Opera’s erudite Music Director, offered a generous pre-show talk that unpacked Rigoletto’s tangled heart: the jester’s curse, a daughter’s doomed innocence, and the social hypocrisies that render this 19th-century melodrama shockingly modern. With his signature blend of wit and scholarship, Conlon reframed the opera as a parable of power, vengeance, and sacred love.

“Some may call Rigoletto a tragedy, but this performance proved that when a curse is sung with truth and staged with vision, it becomes a blessing.”

Baritone Quinn Kelsey, the undisputed Verdi master of his generation, embodied Rigoletto with raw humanity. His performance was not a portrait of rage, but of a father unraveling—his “Cortigiani, vil razza dannata” thundered with grief. Opposite him, soprano Lisette Oropesa gave a luminous, near-transcendent turn as Gilda. Her “Caro nome” was less aria than invocation—fragile, radiant, and utterly devastating.nTenor René Barbera’s Duke of Mantua was all seductive gleam and vocal velvet, delivering “La donna è mobile” with both bravado and unsettling entitlement. It was less a song than a warning wrapped in silk.

Director Tomer Zvulun’s reimagining placed the story in 1930s Fascist Italy—a choice that darkened the edges of every scene. Glamour gave way to dread, as Erhard Rom’s shadowy, sumptuous set mirrored the moral rot beneath the gilding. Jessica Jahn’s costumes struck a stunning balance between period realism and cinematic flair.

Under Conlon’s baton, the LA Opera Orchestra conjured a soundscape that breathed silk and fire into Verdi’s score. Each crescendo landed like a reckoning; each silence carried weight. Here, the music didn’t accompany the drama—it exposed it. As the curtain fell, thunderous applause rose. Bravos rang out. Some may call Rigoletto a tragedy, but this performance proved that when a curse is sung with truth and staged with vision, it becomes a blessing.

— Rosane Grimberg

LA Opera’s Rigoletto runs through June 21, 2025, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. For tickets and more information, visit laopera.org.