First we must salute the 64-year-old Leo Nucci’s Rigoletto. Visually, the pathetic figure with the haunted, apprehensive expression will prove memorable, as will those notes and phrases which still proclaim him one of the most richly endowed baritones of our time. His “Cortigiani, vil razza” is now declaimed more than sung: he often approaches a sustained note with a scoop, and at any moment the texture of his voice is likely to loosen. But it is still a true Rigoletto voice, which means that we can still believe that were the whole part to be transposed up a semitone he would not be worried.

The Gilda, Elena Mosuc, suits well in voice and appearance, her “Caro nome” sung with a winning gentleness if with a suspicion of self-regard, confirmed as at its conclusion she ceases to be Rigoletto’s daughter and delightedly acknowledges the audience’s applause. Piotr Beczala is a splendid Duke, strengthening the estimate we already have of him as being currently among the best of our lyric tenors. László Polgár, another veteran, appears hardly to have aged vocally at all, his dignified bearing placing this Sparafucile in the aristocracy of assassins. In the pit, or rather standing precipitously high above it, is Nello Santi, father of all, who made his debut with this same opera as a promising 20-year-old in 1951.

Gilbert Defoe, the stage director, creates a strong initial impression of originality by setting the Mantuan court in the period originally intended. Monterone, however, appears in 19th-century costume, and so hereafter does everybody else. It seems we must suppose that in the first scene the Duke was throwing a party in fancy-dress. “You know it makes sense.”