Lyric Opera of Chicago's 2024-25 season opened Saturday night with a traditionalist's dream: a straightforward treatment of a center-of-the-canon opera with a sparkling cast. Tenor Javier Camarena and soprano Mané Galoyan made their company debuts alongside baritone Igor Golovatenko in an unobtrusive production of Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto that left plenty of room for the superb soloists to shine.
The familiar story of Rigoletto, the sad clown whose already excessive measures to protect his daughter, Gilda, from the cruelty of the court of the Duke of Mantua prove not enough, did its usual cranking of the melodrama knob to 11, letting the singing actors show their chops. Golovatenko's Rigoletto ranged convincingly from the merciless jester to the desperate father. Galoyan's Gilda was passionate and yearning. Camarena's Duke was nonchalantly lecherous, with even a fleeting touch of humanity.
Javier Camarena, who had previously given a recital in Chicago but never before appeared here in a staged opera, played the Duke with obvious comfort, easily projecting to the gallery in the 3,000-plus-seat house. His instrument lies so high that even the high B at the end of “La donna è mobile” that for many tenors sounds to audiences like a push felt here like Camarena had plenty of notes left above it. His characterization made the Duke sympathetic for his one pensive moment before he reverts to wolfish form upon discovering his courtiers have all but delivered Gilda into his lap.
In the night's other major local debut, Galoyan bewitched the audience in "Caro nome," imbuing a delicious longing into her declaration of love for the so-called penniless student the Duke pretends to be. Her leaps were exceptionally accurate and shaped to the line, and she possesses the rare gift of an audible, glowing pianissimo above the staff. Some notes in her cadenzas seemed a bit fudged by a wide vibrato, but that's a small cavil on an excellent performance.
Rigoletto as played by Golovatenko carried a sense of inevitable tragedy in his scenes with and about Gilda. He seemed deep down to know that his cloistering his daughter couldn't last, that disaster wasn't just looming but must arrive sooner or later – as, of course, anyone in the audience who has read the synopsis also knows. A keening tone brought an affecting sorrow and anxiety to his baritone high notes.
All three soloists also stood out in their blending in, as sensitive small-ensemble partners. Camarena and Galoyan's voices tumbled over each other ably in their shared cadenza in their love duet, with clear tones and accurate coloratura. The quartet late in the opera with Galoyan, Camarena, Soloman Howard's Sparafucile, and Zoie Reams' Maddalena also displayed impressive unity for such distinctive solo voices.
Rigoletto is a score of sharp contrasts and quick shifts, and Lyric's music director, Enrique Mazzola, has a clear vision of how to navigate them in the pit. The other musicians didn't always snap to his tempos and articulations, however, with ragged edges sometimes trailing behind the sudden shifts. The problem went beyond this opera's notorious difficulties in keeping the chorus clicking along at faster tempos – also present here, especially in the “Zitti, zitti” chorus in the abduction scene, which seemed to slow down – but extended to soloists and even instrumental passages.
Atypically for a Lyric season opener, the production was a revival, original to Lyric in 2006, staged a second time in 2013, and back for the third go-around here. The economical sets use a rotating stone building redecorated to represent multiple settings. Mary Birnbaum's direction hews also to tradition, with the puzzling exception of having Gilda burst in on Sparafucile and Maddalena's murder plot with sword drawn, which doesn't really make sense.
Putting aside those small infelicities, this was a Rigoletto where the production and the orchestra drew little attention to themselves, instead stepping back to spotlight the principal singers. Camarena, Galoyan, and Golovatenko justified this star treatment. Opera singers might not be household names outside of classical-music circles anymore, but for one night, you could close your eyes and believe that they still are.
