Ring a ding ding! There’s a new Duke in town, and he’s jolting the Met’s “Rigoletto” with enough electricity to light up the Las Vegas Strip.
It’s Vittorio Grigolo, who flaunted a big, trumpeting tenor and a megawatt personality when he made his company debut in the role Saturday night.
In this Michael Mayer update of the 1851 Verdi classic, the Duke is a lounge singer in Sinatra-era Vegas who sets the tragedy in motion when he seduces the comedian Rigoletto’s virginal daughter, Gilda.
As the cocaine-fueled playboy, the baby-faced Grigolo looked Rat Pack-born, rocking a white dinner jacket and a Brylcreemed pompadour. The voice, though not really beautiful, was rock-solid, with loud, ringing high B’s that came as easy as pushing a button. Less reliable was his musical sense, as he mercilessly rushed conductor Marco Armiliato’s tempos and came unglued in the last act quartet.
Too bad Grigolo’s manic energy didn’t rub off on the rest of the cast. The hot-blooded Rigoletto clan came off like polite WASPs reciting scenes from “Father Knows Best.”
Still, as Gilda, Lisette Oropesa offered a pearly “Caro nome” in her poised soprano, and George Gagnidze thundered in a craggy baritone as Rigoletto, her vengeful father.
If mezzo Nancy Fabiola Herrera sounded matronly as the lap dancer Maddalena, Enrico Giuseppe Iori made a strong debut as her brother Sparafucile. As a sleazy hit man, he projected quiet menace with a distinctive, gritty bass.
Mayer’s staging, which premiered in January, still flubbed most of the melodrama’s surefire moments, but Christine Jones’ sets looked smashing, a jungle of pulsating neon.
Even if this “Rigoletto” is hardly a smash hit, in Grigolo, it has a star whose name belongs in lights.