All-Star Cast: As Rigoletto, the Duke of Mantua, Gilda, Sparafucile, and Maddalena...
Audio Recordings:
1945, conducted by Cesare Sordero (live from the old Metropolitan Opera House, New York): Leonard Warren, Jussi Bjoerling, Bidú Sayão, Norman Cordon, Martha Lipton
1955, conducted by Tulio Serafin: Tito Gobbi, Giuseppe Di Stephano, Maria Callas, Nicola Zaccaria, Adriana Lazzarini
1963, conducted by Georg Solti: Robert Merrill, Alfredo Kraus, Anna Moffo, Ezio Flagello, Rosalind Elias
1964, conducted by Rafael Kubelík: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Carlo Bergonzi, Renata Scotto, Ivo Vinco, Fiorenza Cossotto
1971, conducted by Richard Bonynge: Sherrill Milnes, Luciano Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland, Martti Talvela, Huguette Tourangeau
1978, conducted by Julius Rudel: Sherrill Milnes, Alfredo Kraus, Beverly Sills, Samuel Ramey, Mignon Dunn
1979, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini: Piero Cappuccilli, Plácido Domingo, Ileana Cotrubas, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Elena Obraztsova
1992, conducted by Riccardo Muti: Renato Bruson, Roberto Alagna, Andrea Rost, Silvestro Sammaritano, Mariana Pentcheva
Video Recordings:
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1982 film (conducted by Riccardo Chailly): Ingvar Wixell, Luciano Pavarotti, Edita Gruberová, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Victoria Vergara
2004, conducted by Jésus López-Cobos: Carlos Álvarez, Marcelo Álvarez, Inva Mula, Julian Konstantinov, Nino Surguladze
2006, conducted by Nello Santi at the Zurich Opera: Leo Nucci, Piotr Beczala, Elena Mosuc, László Polgár, Katharina Peetz
2013, conducted by Michele Mariotti at the Met Opera: Zeljko Lucic, Piotr Beczala, Diana Damrau, Stefan Kocan, Oksana Volkova
2015, conducted by Fabio Luisi at the Zurich Opera: George Petean, Saimir Pirgu, Aleksandra Kurzak, Andrea Mastroni, Judith Schmid
Fake Nationality: This is a regular occurrence in productions of the opera, especially outside of Italy, since at least a few of the singers typically won't be Italian. For example:
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's film. Apart from the Duke and Sparafucile, who are sung by the Italians Luciano Pavarotti and Ferruccio Furlanetto, respectively, Rigoletto is sung by the Swedish Ingvar Wixell, Gilda by the Slovak Edita Gruberová, and Maddalena by the Chilean Victoria Vergara.
Likewise in the 2010 film Rigoletto a Mantova (filmed on location in Mantua). Like Ponnelle's film, only the roles of the Duke and Sparafucile are sung by two Italian singers, Vittorio Grigòlo and Ruggero Raimondi, respectively. Rigoletto is sung by the Spanish Plácido Domingo, Gilda by the Russian Julia Novikova, and Maddalena by the Georgian Nino Surguladze.
Playing Against Type: Tenors are used to playing young lovers or tragic heroes. In sharp contrast, the Duke of Mantua is, to put it bluntly, an asshole!
What Could Have Been: Verdi originally planned for the opera to be a more direct adaptation of Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse. However, Austrian censors were scandalized by the depiction of a womanizing king, so Verdi and Piave were forced to rework the libretto to make the sovereign a duke and change the setting to Mantua, and all the characters had to be renamed.
