THE SONGBIRD: German soprano Brigitte Hahn, born in Duisburg in 1964, is nothing if not versatile. She has sung big German roles (Wagner's Brünnhilde and Isolde, Beethoven's Leonore, Strauss's Ariadne) and big Italian roles (Verdi's Lady MacBeth and Amelia, Puccini's Turandot and Tosca), as well as Mozart (all the lead lyric roles including Konstanze) and bel canto (Gilda, Norma, and Lucia), plus a cross section of other composers (Strauss, Britten, and Meyerbeer to name a few). In Berlin, Hahn pulled off one of the true signs of a versatile operatic soprano: singing all four heroines in Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann." She has had successes in Vienna, Hannover, Hamburg, Dresden, Munich, Zurich, Amsterdam, Milan, and Barcelona.
THE MUSIC: Verdi's "Rigoletto" is a true operatic masterpiece and one of the most performed and recorded works in history. Its premiere in Venice in 1851 was a triumph with the public -- some critics at the time felt the plot was too dark and the music too tuneful, but simply put, they were wrong; "Rigoletto" has never faded from the core repertoire in 170+ years. The opera contains many watershed innovations in plot and character, musical structure, and orchestration. Gilda's aria "Caro nome che il mio cor" is one example as there were really no arias prior to it that had its unusual structure, inventive blend of rhythm and melody, and shimmering orchestration, all elements that Verdi combined to effectively convey the breathless innocence of the naive young woman's first infatuation. The score as written tops out at a High C#, but it has become fairly standard practice for sopranos to insert a short cadenza with a staccato volley to a High D#. The full scene ends with a long coda where Gilda dreamily repeats phrases of its main theme, unaware that the conniving Courtiers are stealthily approaching in the dark to abduct her, and then softly diminishes on a long trill held over two and a half measures.