Publication of Rigoletto

Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with a libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on Victor Hugo's play Le roi s'amuse. It premiered at La Fenice in Venice in 1851. The plot concerns Rigoletto, a hunchbacked court jester who serves the lecherous Duke of Mantua and tries to protect his daughter Gilda, only to see his plan for revenge lead to her death. The censors objected to the play's portrayal of a king as a libertine, so Verdi and Piave changed the setting from the French court to a fictional Italian duchy. Rigoletto was a great success and contains one of the best-known tenor arias in opera, La donna e mobile.

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