News

Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi, one of the most performed and popular works of the Italian composer, will have its opening night on Friday, October 27, 2023, as the first premiere of this Opera season. The conductor is Pier Giorgio Morandi, the Chief Conductor of the CNT in Zagreb, Pier Francesco Maestrini is the stage director and the Chorus, and the Orchestra will be accompanied by the soloists of the CNT in Zagreb and guests Atalla Ayan and Irina Dubrovskaya, who have earned acclaim all over the world.

Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto was first performed in 1851 in the Venetian theatre La Fenice and Verdi was inspired by the literary drama of Victor Hugo Le roi s'amuse. About the drama Verdi said: „Perhaps it will be the greatest drama of modern theatre and the protagonist is a character worthy of Shakespeare.“ In this famous work, one aria became universally popular from its very first performance, and that wa+is the aria of the immoral Duke — La donna é mobile.

The love tragedy of Rigoletto's only daughter Gilda is the focus of this masterpiece of opera art that will return to the stage of the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb after more than 15 years.

It is our great pleasure that we shall open the season of the Zagreb Opera with this large-scale premiere of Verdi's Rigoletto, precisely in the year when we mark 150 years of its first staging in Croatia. Brilliant international creatives, exceptional soloists and the Chorus and Orchestra of our Opera will offer a production that will be on our repertoire for years to come. The interest of the audience is exceptional and almost all planned performances, ten days prior to the opening night are sold out, said the director of the Opera of the CNT in Zagreb Željka Barišić Pulig.

Ljubomir Puškarić, soloist of the Opera of the CNT in Zagreb will appear in the role of Rigoletto and he says: The title role of Rigoletto is considered to be one of the most demanding tasks that the opera repertoire can offer to baritones. Rigoletto is very demanding vocally, dramaturgically and interpretatively, but it also offers a plenitude of expression which most other roles do not. I am extremely happy and honoured that I can add the role of Rigoletto to my other Verdi roles I have sung on the stage of the CNT in Zagreb. I was looking forward to every rehearsal where I was preparing the role with my dear colleagues and our honorary chief conductor Pier Giorgio Morandi and stage director Pier Francesco Maestrini.

This project is a part of the program cooperation – exchange between the CNT in Zagreb and the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor.