The Met took a gamble on a new production of “Rigoletto” Monday night — but, dramatically at least, the show crapped out.
Director Michael Mayer — of Broadway’s “Spring Awakening” and TV’s “Smash” — relocated Verdi’s tragedy from 16th-century Mantua to Las Vegas circa 1960. Instead of a court jester to a womanizing duke, Rigoletto was the opening act for a Sinatra-like lounge singer, trading his hunchback for a slight limp.
In fact, Mayer’s staging is also slight and limp, shedding no new light on the melodrama. It’s your grandfather’s “Rigoletto,” tarted up like a musical version of “Ocean’s Eleven.”
Amid the neon and slot machines of Christine Jones’ eye-popping sets, Piotr Beczala shone as the ring-a-ding-ding Duke, his honeyed lyric tenor as immaculate as his crisp white dinner jacket. Though he scored a big ovation for the last act showpiece “La donna è mobile,” his best moment came earlier in the show. The aria “Parmi veder le lagrime,” in which the Duke recalls his beloved Gilda, was a model of easy, unaffected legato.
Matching him in freshness of voice was Diana Damrau as Rigoletto’s daughter. Her light soprano easily flitted through the intricate “Caro nome,” though in more lyric moments, she fussed too much with the line, suggesting a sophistication alien to the naive Gilda.
In the title role, expert baritone Zeljko Lucic seemed to be having an off night, with bleached tone and a lot of flat singing. His acting, too, seemed bland. When Rigoletto discovered his murdered daughter in the trunk of his car, he looked only mildly perturbed, as if he’d forgotten to pack a spare tire.
Stefan Kocán’s obsidian-like bass etched a memorable cameo as the sleazy hit man Sparafucile, though mezzo Oksana Volkova was mostly inaudible as his hooker sister Maddalena.
The real problems were not onstage but in the pit. Conductor Michele Mariotti’s glacially slow tempos left Damrau and Lucic short of breath, and on more upbeat numbers orchestra and chorus spun out of sync.
Sure, the Met deserves credit for trying something new with this “Rigoletto.” But what happened in Vegas should have stayed in Mantua.