Rigoletto framed by Italian Romanticism

Abstract

“Ch’hai du nuovo, buffon?” Actually, nothing is new for him. He is as he has always been, namely, in a very basic sense a court jester by profession, a doting father in his private life. There are, of course, many attenuating factors that contribute to his becoming a tragic figure by the end of the opera, not least a nasty streak in his character that allies him with the villainous, together with an extraordinary capacity for profound suffering that brings him on a par with the heroic. So, for the purposes of this essay, the question should really be re-phrased, and one could ask: what is new about, rather than for, both Rigoletto and Rigoletto?