Edited by Martin Chusid (1983)
Two-volume set: score pp. LXX, 347 + critical commentary | NR 133543
Piano vocal score | CP 133539
Study score (paperback edition) | NR 141652
Piano vocal score (Practical Series – with abridged introduction and no critical notes) | CP 141356
Verdi wrote Rigoletto, his seventeenth opera and one for which he himself had the highest regard, in the aftermath of the widespread European revolutions of 1848-49. It was a time when governing authorities in Italian cities were especially sensitive to what they considered dangerous liberal ideas or tendencies. La censura, the police censorship, felt obliged to oversee not only the political but also the religious and moral implications of all public utterances. It is hardly surprising that opera was particularly suspect. This pervasively repressive atmosphere was to have a negative influence not only on the composition of Rigoletto, but also on many performances of the work during the decade following its premiere (11 March 1851), years in which the dream of a united Italy became reality.
As he was completing his basic compositional document, the continuity draft, Verdi negotiated with Ricordi for the publication, rental, and sales rights to Rigoletto. He received seven hundred gold Napoleons paid over a period of some ten months and was also to receive 30% of the rentals and 40% of the sales of the score to opera houses for a period of ten years. On 11 March the premiere of Rigoletto took place, and it was a complete success: Verdi was called out and acclaimed after almost every number. Although the work has had continuous success from the day of its premiere through the present, until the unification of Italy in 1860 censors frequently maltreated the libretto, often damaging the music as well. It was not so much the political aspect – the plot to murder a ruler – that bothered the censors, as the unhappy fate of Gilda. Many contemporary critics objected to her kidnapping being shown on stage.
Of the musical prehistory of Rigoletto, we know only the manuscript published in facsimile by Carlo Gatti as L’abbozzo del Rigoletto di Giuseppe Verdi, a document containing twenty-eight folios grouped in two fascicles. The bulk of the Abbozzo is devoted to a continuity draft of the entire opera. The principal source for this edition is Verdi’s complete autograph full score of the opera. It is housed in the Ricordi Historical Archives in Milan. This is particularly important for Rigoletto because Verdi never directed the work again after its Venetian premiere, nor did he make revisions in the score or compose any new number indeed, Verdi unquestionably felt that Rigoletto should not be tampered with. During the nineteenth century the full score of Rigoletto circulated to opera houses in manuscript copies. Not until the end of the century did Ricordi print a full score for rental; no printed score existed for sale until 1914. These very late sources have no textual significance for this edition. Soon after the premiere, however, Ricordi began to prepare printed orchestral parts for rent and a vocal score for sale. Though there is no evidence that Verdi directly participated in their preparation or indeed that he was even consulted about them, their early date gives them a certain importance as indicators of contemporary practice. The complete vocal score was ready in 1852: it has proved useful on occasion when Verdi’s notation in the vocal lines is confusing or incorrect. Though its readings do not have compositional authority, they do at least reflect the views of musicians close to the composer. Also of interest are two early vocal scores, the first to contain metronomic indications.
In addition to all the features listed up to this point, the critical edition constitutes an invaluable instrument for today’s interpreter because it brings together in a single publication all the information relating to the genesis (for Rigoletto, extremely complex and intricate, due to the extensive re-workings rendered necessary in order to adapt the original libretto to the requirements of the censors without however undermining the dramatic force of the subject chosen by Verdi and Piave), tradition, and performance characteristics of the opera that up to today have been dispersed in a large number of sources and studies often difficult to access.