Unit Overview

Who is Rigoletto?

What is the Structure of the Story?

Why Do These Characters Act This Way?

From Story to Stage

Developing a Libretto

The Composer and the Librettist

Operatic Conventions

How Do Words and Music Help Us Understand the Characters

Discovering Opera through Rigoletto

How Do Words and Music Help Us Understand the Characters?

5-8

Language Arts, Performing Arts

The last lesson in this unit pulls together the words and the music. After learning about traditional operatic vocal types, students analyze scenes. How do the words, vocal types, and music set the scene and tell the story?

TV/video player
CD player
Bulletin board

The students should have their handouts from the previous lessons:
Direction Cards
Verdi and Piave: A typical Partnership
Rigoletto's Story; part 1 and part 2

Lesson and Extension-Specific Resources: See unit overview

General Internet Resources: See unit overview

Students will identify and describe ways in which the words and the music of the opera help to define the characters.

Silent reading
Listening skills
Teacher-led discussion
Analyzing
Categorizing
Critical thinking strategies
Guided activity

1. As a warm up, ask students to think of examples in which words or music help to describe a character in television shows or movies.

2. Introduce the students to the four traditional operatic vocal types (soprano, contralto, tenor and baritone). Explain that each vocal type traditionally sang certain kinds of roles. The soprano was the heroine, the tenor was the hero, the baritone was often either the villain or the noble friend of the tenor.

3. Listen to the Duke's song (CD2, Tr12) in Rigoletto and examine the words of the aria. Do you believe that the Duke is a hero like most tenors? How would you describe the Duke?

4. Examine the character of Rigoletto. Where does he act like a villain? Where does he act like a good father?

5. Read the libretto and listen to the selection (CD2, Tr5). Why does Rigoletto sing such a carefree song? Do you think that he is really happy in that situation? How do the words and the music tell you this?

6. Read the libretto and listen to the selection (CD2, Tr6). What words tell you of Rigoletto's emotions? Does this aria have only one emotion? How does the music help you understand the emotions?

7. Examine the characters in the opera and classify them by vocal type. Do the characters match the usual conventions of vocal type? Is Rigoletto a villain? Is he a noble friend? Is the Duke a hero?

8. Using construction paper, scissors and markers, have the students create two masks for Rigoletto, one depicting his role as the rather mean court jester and one as the loving father. When in the opera would Rigoletto use each mask?

Students demonstrate the understanding that characters may sometimes have a public and a private face.

At this point in the study, students should have demonstrated a clear knowledge of the subject matter of the opera. You may elect to devote some class time to showing them a video of the complete opera. You may also opt to show only selected portions of the opera if you do not have time for the entire video. You may also want to explore a new opera or operetta. Perhaps they could take their notes from the lessons in this series and come up with their own opera.

Black Dog Opera Series Rigoletto CD

© ARTSEDGE, 2000