by Kim Pederson…….

So here’s the story. Act I. There’s this duke, see, who likes to have a life of pleasure with as many women as possible. The duke has a hunchback court jester who likes to taunt the men cuckolded by the duke. He also tells the duke that he, the duke, should just arrest the husband of any woman that he, the duke, is interested in seducing and send him, the husband, off to prison or kill him, the husband that is. The duke does this to a count but before he, the count, is taken off he curses the duke and the hunchback. This bothers the hunchback more than he, the hunchback, expected to be bothered.

The hunchback has a beautiful daughter who, things being the way they are, he keeps hidden away in the house, only letting her out for church. While the hunchback is off doing his thing one day, the duke happens to meet the daughter and they fall instantly in love. Meanwhile all the noble husbands PO’d by the hunchback find out about the daughter and think she, the daughter, is the hunchback’s mistress. They trick the hunchback into helping them kidnap her, the daughter that is.

Wait. It gets better. Act II. The noblemen tell the duke they have kidnapped the hunchback’s mistress. The duke discovers it is the daughter and they have a rapturous reunion. The noblemen get back at the hunchback by letting him know that the duke is having great sport with his, the hunchback that is, mistress. He’s all like, what mistress? He discovers that his daughter has been seduced by the duke and vows to kill him, the duke that is.

And finally, Act III. After making nefarious arrangements, the hunchback brings his daughter, dressed as a man, the daughter that is, to the house where the duke is trying to seduce the sister of the man the hunchback has hired to kill him, the duke that is. The sister begs for the duke’s life to be spared and her brother says, fine, but someone has to go in the bag so I get paid. The hunchback’s daughter overhears this and volunteers to die for the duke. The brother says, whatever, and stabs her and puts her in the bag.

Almost there now. The hunchback arrives with the money, pays the brother, takes the sack, and is about to throw it into the river when he hears the duke singing in the distance. Puzzled, he opens the bag and finds, horrors!, his mortally wounded daughter. She dies in his arms and he realizes, heartbroken, that he’s just wasted a lot of dough, no, sorry, he realizes, heartbroken that the count’s curse has come home to roost big time.

Phew. Made it. If you haven’t figured it out by now (and why should you?), this is the story of Rigoletto, the hunchback, who is the tragic hero(?) of Verdi’s opera of the same name. It was first performed — scratch that — had a triumphant premiere on this day, March 11, in 1851. If you’re of a certain age, you may remember the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate from Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In. There are various definitions for this phrase but my favorite is “the fickle nature of the universe and how it seems to bestow bad luck on some people more than others.” Rigoletto, of course, would not have known the words but he would have understood the meaning. I can imagine him at the close of the opera, bemoaning the unfairness and cruelty of the 4-F universe as he sings beautifully “Annullata dalla flying volubile dito del destino.” There wouldn’t be a dry eye in the house.

* Set design for act “IV” (III as normally counted) of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto (US-PD)

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Visit Kim Pederson’s blog RatBlurt: Mostly Random Short-Attention-Span Musings.