It now appears that you don't need to be a fictional 16th century courtier
hanging out in the Palazzo del Te in Mantua to act like a jerk - making
fun of, mocking, despising, destroying a deformed man.  If you're a 21st
century American director, you can do the same...  and do it on purpose.
And do it not only with miscalculated excesses but mostly with the
imposition of an atmosphere devoid of sympathetic characters, pathos,
involvement.

Last night, before reading the program notes, I reported that Mark Lamos'
direction of the San Francisco Opera production of Verdi's "Rigoletto" is
confused and confusing, bored and boring, taking real drama and passion
out of the work, just to get cheap laughs.  Today, as I am reading Lamos'
article, I realize that his destructive direction was not a matter of
misjudgment or failure.  This is what he meant to do.

It now appears that Lamos has no great love or even respect for
"Rigoletto." It was then an interesting decision by SFO's former
administration (Lotfi Mansouri and Christina Scheppelmann) to hire
him for the job.

(Full disclosure: I liked Lamos' 1966 direction of SFO's "Broadway-style
Boheme" in the Orpheum while the War Memorial was closed.  Also, I found
my favorite director, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, perhaps at his worst in SFO
"Rigoletto" productions.  It IS a tough assignment, but one thing is clear:
if you don't appreciate the work, stay away from it.)

Lamos - who killed the first verse of "Questa quella" with audience gasps
and giggles as one female chorus member stimulated fellatio on the Duke
mid-singing, and killed the second in the din of embarrassed audience
laughter as Frank Lopardo bumped and grinded against another singer in
tempo with the music - believes that "the story of `Rigoletto' has all
the makings of classic comedy."

Lamos - who has the Duke charge Gilda like a bull during their first
meeting (while, according to the text, he pretends to be a simple, naive
young man) - regards the opera as "a Moliere comedy turned inside out."

He writes that the work is characterized by "the utter lack of subtlety,
ridiculous coincidences, the pure, straightforward manic expression of
devices and desires." In a amazing leap of non-logic, Lamos goes from there
to this: "The powerful music is welded to a lock-tight libretto stunning
in its economy."

And then, the director appears to side with the Wagner-Liszt-Berlioz
anti-Verdi sentiment in the Isaiah Berlin-defined "hateful formula - the
conventions of opera - those self-contained arias, duets, trios, quintets,
choruses, the inevitable appoggiaturas and artificially stuck-on cabalettas
and cavatinas..."

Not writing (and not proving with his direction) that Verdi's work can
soar and triumph in spite of those obvious problems, Lamos concludes that
"in this old-fashioned `comedy,' the Fool is duped, his precious virgin
murdered by his own conniving, and the libertine rake is set free to sing
his hurdy-gurdy song on into the night."

Lamos' article is entitled "The Comis in Verdi's Tragedy." His direction,
thus explained, is on view at the San Francisco Opera through Sept.  29.

Janos Gereben/SF
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