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Charles Edwards and Opera North made it memorable indeed, for this is a production that must long haunt the imagination, one which befits admirably a story which would excite any newspaper editor and innumerable journalists hoping to benefit from the increased sales it would inevitably yield.

Verdi and Piave improved on Hugo immeasurably, and Edwards has added a sleazy dimension to it that reeks of the sordid Italian underworld -- and indeed the underworld anywhere now. The ducal palace has become a dissolute escort agency, the duke its wealthy lecherous proprietor and the deformed Rigoletto his exploited and no doubt underpaid manager who lives secretly -- or so he believes -- in a decrepit caravan with his daughter, whom Il Duca's gang believes to be a lover.

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