BASEBALL RIGOLETTO?
alright, so:
the year is 2020. because the year is 2020, opera companies are being forced to cancel or drastically rework their season. and because it is the year 2020 in america, and the american government is absolutely not being helpful, pretty much every american opera company has to cancel their entire season.
tulsa opera sees this and says “there has to be another way”.
they decide to stage an opera in a (minor league) baseball stadium. people can be socially distanced onstage, audience members can be socially distanced, we can get away with a reduced orchestration, win-win.
they decide that because they are doing an opera in a baseball stadium, they might as well give an opera a baseball-centered concept.
they decide to do verdi’s rigoletto, one of the most popular operas of all time and also one where they can cast several oklahoma opera people (most notably famous soprano sarah coburn as gilda).
rigoletto is the team mascot. the duke is a cocky (in all senses of the word) star pitcher. sparafucile is an umpire from oklahoma city (one of the reasons the sparaficule/rigoletto duet is hysterically funny is because the subtitles kept it TOTALLY STRAIGHT until they got to the line about sparafucile being a foreigner, when they translated it as sparafucile saying he is from oklahoma city) who inexplicably carries a dagger with him at all times and likes to murder people.
it is a mess. it is camp. it is ingenious given the circumstances. it is glorious. and i happen to have a) a single degree of separation from the production (i was in a production of la bohème with the singer who played ceprano) and b) a link!