User Reviews

This is Rigoletto done as well as it ever has been done. Placido Domingo excels even himself. What an incredible treasure he is, genuine tears rolling down his cheeks in the final, tragic scene with Gilda. Vittorio Grigolo and Julia Novikov, although less well known than Domingo, don't suffer in the least from comparison with the great man. This is a cast of winners! Verdi's gut wrenching masterpiece is always a treat. But this movie production of it is especially good with its dramatic lighting, its cuts, its camera angles and close-ups and its on site staging in Mantua. Yet, like Zeferelli's wonderful films of La Traviata and Otello, it loses nothing in the translation from stage to film. Whether you are an opera lover or not --- and I am --- it's hard to believe anybody could be less than enthralled, entranced and emotionally exhausted by this production.