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Subject Area: Music
Topic: Opera and Liberty

SCENE VI.—: Rigoletto and Gilda. - Giuseppe Verdi, Rigoletto: An Opera in Four Acts [1851]

Edition used:

Rigoletto: An Opera in Four Acts, words by Victor Hugo (New York: Fred Rullman, n.d.). Metropolitan Opera House, Grand Opera, Libretto.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


SCENE VI.—

RigolettoandGilda.

Rig.

Now speak, we are alone.

Gil.

Now, Heaven, give me aid!

Each Sunday, whilst I went

To church, my prayers to say,

A youth of heavenly beauty

Did follow on our way;

And if our lips were silent,

The eyes betray’d our hearts.

In secret, only yesterday,

He came to me at night;

I am a student—poor—

Much moved, he said to me,

And ardently repeated,

I am in love with thee.

He left me then; my heart

With brighter hopes did beat,

When suddenly appeared

Those men who took me away,

And brought me to this place,

Half fai ting, in dismay.

Rig.

Ah, speak no more my angel!

(Now all I understand—

Upon my head alone

I asked thy curse, O Heaven

I begged that she may rise

The moment I should die—

Ah! often by the scaffold

The altar raised we see!

Now all for e’er is lost,

No hope remains to me!)

Ah, weep, my child, and let thy tears

Upon my bosom fall.

Gil.

My father, your dear words

Forever my grief consoles.

Rig.

I must settle some affairs,

And then forever we will leave this place.

Gil.

Yes.

Rig.

One day has changed our fate.