Verdi's Rigoletto: First Love, Wrong Love

Aria Code

WQXR & The Metropolitan Opera

Music Interviews, Music Commentary, Aria, Music, Arts, Metropolitan, Performing Arts, Code, Wqxr, Opera, Wnyc, Studios

4.8 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2019

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You’ve probably been there: in love for the first time and enchanted by the very sound of your sweetheart’s name. The problem for Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto is that her new love isn’t who he says he is. The worst will come (it’s opera), but for a few brief moments in Act I, Gilda’s innocence sweeps you away. She’s young and head over heels and obsessing over the “caro nome,” the “dear name” of her new love.

In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens is joined by soprano Nadine Sierra, writer Paul Thomason and psychologist Carl Pickhardt. Together they consider the dizzying thrill of your first love, Verdi’s brilliant powers of orchestration and why Gilda’s infatuation rings so true even today. You’ll hear Nadine Sierra reminisce about her own formative experiences and then fall in love with the so-called “Gualtier Maldè” onstage at the Metropolitan Opera.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know this guy is sex on a stick and charm personified.
0:09.1	He is the ultimate bad boy.
0:10.8	He's the sort of person you look at and you think, God, he is such trouble.
0:17.8	But I bet he'd be worth it.
0:21.6	From WQXR in the Metropolitan Opera, this is Ariaco.
0:25.0	I'm Rianning Gittens.
0:27.8	You know, she's the perfect victim in waiting because she has no life experience.
0:32.0	She has nobody to advise her and she has no clear idea about what true love is.
0:39.2	Every episode we crack open one Ariane and find out how it works.
0:43.0	Today, Karo Nome from Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi.
0:48.4	He is filled her heart with this emotion, love, which she's never experienced before in
0:54.6	her life.
0:55.6	Her whole life, body, soul is awakening because of this one single moment.
1:04.6	Okay, so I was in middle school and there was a boy.
1:17.0	And everybody knew that we were crushed and hard for each other, but we just didn't
1:20.4	want to admit it.
1:21.4	But who else but a crush do you watch Jeopardy over the phone with and see who can get
1:28.0	the right answer first?
1:29.6	I mean, come on people.
1:31.2	I've never done that with anybody else in my entire life.
1:33.3	I don't even know anybody else who's done that.
1:35.1	So for this nerd girl, that was definitely a crush.
	...

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