![\"Jos\u00e9](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/sut-l-stage-rigoletto2_e19ffa.jpg\")
Jos\u00e9 Simerilla Romero as The Duke, right, with other cast members in San Diego Opera\u2019s production of Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s \u201cRigoletto,\u201d which played Oct. 23-25 at the San Diego Civic Theatre. (Karli Cadel)<\/p>\nA melodramatic story and sometimes awkward stage direction took a little of the shine off San Diego Opera\u2019s production of Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s masterwork \u201cRigoletto\u201d this past weekend, but the singing and the scenery were sublime.<\/p>\n
The 1851 opera was staged at the San Diego Civic Theatre for three performances Oct. 23-25, with musical accompaniment by San Diego Symphony musicians.<\/p>\n
Jos\u00e9 Simerilla Romero as The Duke, right, with other cast members in San Diego Opera\u2019s production of Giuseppe Verdi\u2019s \u201cRigoletto,\u201d which played Oct. 23-25 at the San Diego Civic Theatre. (Karli Cadel)<\/p>\n
In her company debut, golden-voiced soprano Madison Leonard was a superb standout as the ill-fated Gilda, the self-sacrificing daughter of the opera\u2019s title character Rigoletto.<\/p>\n
And as Rigoletto, a jester in the court of the sexually rapacious Duke of Mantua, bass-baritone Michael Chioldi dramatically portrayed the pain of his character\u2019s self-loathing, heartbreak and fury with his powerful and well-modulated voice.<\/p>\n
Tenor Jos\u00e9 Simerilla Romero also impressed in his company debut as The Duke. Romero\u2019s supple voice gracefully soared through his character\u2019s famous arias, with a warm, ear-pleasing sound. And another standout was bass-baritone Peixin Chen as the assassin-for-hire Sparafucile.<\/p>\n
Other singers featured in the \u201cRigoletto\u201d cast were Guadalupe Paz, Joel Balzun, S\u00f8ren Pedersen, Adam Caughey, Travis Sherwood, Emily Weinberg, Maya Goell, Lisa Parente and Christopher Walters. The show also featured an all-male ensemble from the San Diego Opera Chorus, led by company Chorus Master Bruce Stasyna.<\/p>\n
San Diego Opera\u2019s Principal Conductor Yves Abel elegantly led the San Diego Symphony in the Civic\u2019s orchestra pit and balanced the musicians\u2019 sound well with that of the singers, some of whom had smaller voices than others.<\/p>\n
Since its founding in 1965, San Diego Opera has staged \u201cRigoletto\u201d seven times.<\/p>\n
While it offers one of the best scores in the operatic canon, the antiquated story of \u201cRigoletto\u201d feels more and more out of date as the years pass. This year\u2019s production was staged by Christopher Mattaliano, who opened the show with a prophetic father-and-daughter tableau that would tragically repeat itself in the final scene.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, Mattaliano\u2019s staging wasn\u2019t as violent as the company\u2019s gothic horror-filled 2019 production, but it had some awkward\u00a0 moments that strained credulity. The scene where courtiers kidnapped Gilda out from under Rigoletto\u2019s nose looked silly. And the back-from-the-dead Gilda standing up to deliver her final aria felt improbable.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s production featured the company\u2019s own gorgeous, large-scale ducal palace scenery, which symbolically includes a large sculpture resembling Giambologna\u2019s famed Rape of the Sabine Women sculpture in Florence. Jane Greenwood\u2019s richly made costumes were also lovely.<\/p>\n
\u201cRigoletto\u201d was presented in two acts, plus two temporary pauses for scene changes, for a production that lasted about two hours, 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cRigoletto\u201d was the first of three productions San Diego Opera will present at the Civic this season. Carlisle Floyd\u2019s \u201cSusannah\u201d will play Feb. 12-14 and Mozart\u2019s \u201cThe Marriage of Figaro\u201d runs April 2-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A melodramatic story and sometimes awkward stage direction took a little of the shine off San Diego Opera\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,7974,967,181,74,84,76,75,1058,420],"class_list":["post-508908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-classical-music","tag-entertainment","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-theater","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}