Elena Blangey

This Rigoletto, filmed live at the Zurich Opera House in 2006, has three strong leads to recommend it. In the title role, Leo Nucci fully represents all of Rigoletto’s character traits and range of emotions—the hunchback’s lancing wit, fearfulness, and self-loathing when we first meet him and later, his obsessive need for revenge. Both Rigoletto’s sense of righteous triumph when he believes he’s got the Duke dead in the bag and his inconsolable grief at the drama’s end are palpable.

“Schubert’s music is always associated in my imagination with a journey in a horse-drawn carriage. Outside, the scenery is flowing by. Cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, villages. At times the carriage slows down, then it speeds up again, but I always have that feeling of being on a journey. Not on foot and not on horse, but in a carriage on wheels.” (Elena Bashkirova)