Rigoletto

At the court of the Duke of Mantua, people want fun at any price. That's why there is the court jester Rigoletto. Because no one is safe from his crude jokes and violent attacks, he makes many enemies. Every day, Rigoletto's fear that someone will take revenge on him grows. He has no idea that the Duke has long since drawn his daughter Gilda into his dangerous game at court. Rigoletto has hidden Gilda from the outside world for her entire childhood and locked her away. Now she falls in love with the Duke. Because he is the first man to get close to her. But without a place of retreat with her daughter, Rigoletto's fool's play becomes torture. In Giuseppe Verdi's opera Rigoletto, director Emily Hehl listens to every human emotion, no matter how loudly it is laughed at. Her production features a host of minstrels and jugglers. They are all involved in the sensual parlor game in which the director brings out the misery of all fools. For Verdi's opera pretends to be cheerful and yet is ultimately about crying. The fool, however, must laugh. At all costs. He must not cry. Because crying would mean being human.