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Times Leader Sports Report After Dark: Week 9 recap

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; The opera &#8220;Rigoletto&#8221; is an intensely sad story about an innocent young woman, seduced and slain apparently because bad karma is coming back to hit her father with a vengeance.</p><p>But, Giorgio Lalov said, people will enjoy watching and listening anyway.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like &#8216;Madama Butterfly.&#8217; It doesn&#8217;t matter that she dies in the end. It&#8217;s very beautiful music and the audience, I&#8217;m sure, will like it,&#8221; said Lalov, artistic director of Teatro Lirico D&#8217;Europa, which will present the Verdi masterpiece on Saturday evening at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts.</p><p>The traveling troupe is dedicated to bringing opera to communities that might not otherwise have a chance to experience it.</p><p>&#8220;In Wilkes-Barre there is no opera company in town,&#8221; Lalov said. &#8220;We try to come and present an opera there; otherwise, people will have to travel to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. We want to make it affordable.&#8221;</p><p>Another goal for Lalov, he said, is to &#8220;be honest with the composer. What the composer had in mind, that is what people get.&#8221;</p><p>That means he wouldn&#8217;t stage &#8220;Rigoletto&#8221; in a different time period or costume the cast in anything but the styles worn by a Renaissance duke and his jester and other people who visit his court or skulk about looking to commit murder.</p><p>It&#8217;s also important for him to cast singers who are believable as the characters they portray. &#8220;Gilda can&#8217;t be 500 pounds and 50 years old,&#8221; he said. &#8220;With all due respect, she has to be believable, as a 20-year-old beautiful soprano.&#8221;</p><p>Gilda, the tragic heroine, is the daughter of Rigoletto, the court jester.</p><p>And Rigoletto, though he loves his child, is not the kindest and most compassionate of men. When a visitor comes to the court, complaining that the villainous duke has had his way with the visitor&#8217;s daughter, Rigoletto mocks the situation.</p><p>The visitor curses the duke and Rigoletto and, after many plot twists, Rigoletto will come to understand first-hand the misery of a grieving father.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s a moral to the story,&#8221; Lalov said. &#8220;Rigoletto makes fun of an old man; then the same thing happens to his own daughter. People have to be humble, because all the bad things you do come back to you.&#8221;</p><p>The performance at the F.M. Kirby Center will be sung in Italian with English supratitles projected above the stage. The aria with which audience members might be most familiar is &#8220;La donna e mobile,&#8221; in which the duke, of all people, sings about women being fickle.</p><p>There are many other beautiful pieces as well, Lalov promised. &#8220;You will enjoy it.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_rigo2.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The jester devises a plot against his employer, the duke, and it doesn&#8217;t work out quite the way he would like it to. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_rigo2.jpg</photo0><caption0>The jester devises a plot against his employer, the duke, and it doesn&#8217;t work out quite the way he would like it to. </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_AccusedRIGOLETTO.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">The Verdi opera &#8216;Rigoletto&#8217; will bring its gritty story and soaring music to the F.M. Kirby Center on Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_AccusedRIGOLETTO.jpg</photo1><caption1>The Verdi opera &#8216;Rigoletto&#8217; will bring its gritty story and soaring music to the F.M. Kirby Center on Saturday. </caption1><photoCredit1></photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_RIGOLETTO-pleads.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Artistic director of Teatro Lirico D&#8217;Europa Giorgio Lalov wouldn&#8217;t stage &#8216;Rigoletto&#8217; in a different time period or costume the cast in anything but the styles worn by a Renaissance duke and his jester and other people who visit his court or skulk about looking to commit murder. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_RIGOLETTO-pleads.jpg</photo2><caption2>Artistic director of Teatro Lirico D&#8217;Europa Giorgio Lalov wouldn&#8217;t stage &#8216;Rigoletto&#8217; in a different time period or costume the cast in anything but the styles worn by a Renaissance duke and his jester and other people who visit his court or skulk about looking to commit murder. </caption2><photoCredit2></photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_rigo.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Rigoletto, the jester, will eventually be visited by bad karma in the opera that bears his name. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/web1_rigo.jpg</photo3><caption3>Rigoletto, the jester, will eventually be visited by bad karma in the opera that bears his name. </caption3><photoCredit3></photoCredit3></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Opera tells of young woman slain because of father&#8217;s indiscretions</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>By Mary Therese Biebel</strong></p><p>mbiebel@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>IF YOU GO</strong></p><p><strong>What:</strong> Verdi&#8217;s &#8216;Rigoletto&#8217;</p><p><strong>Who:</strong> Teatro Lirico D&#8217;Europa,</p><p><strong>When:</strong> 7:30 p.m. Saturday</p><p><strong>Where:</strong> F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts, 71 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre</p><p><strong>Tickets:</strong> $10</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mary Therese Biebel at 570-991-6109 or on Twitter @BiebelMT.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’ to take stage Saturday at Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre