IN Series presents an innovative, circus-themed production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto on December 7, 8, 14 & 15 at the Goldman Theater DCJCC and December 11 & 12 at the Baltimore Theatre Project. This is the second production in the company’s 2024-25 season of “Illicit Opera,” featuring operatic and theatrical works that were deemed too radical for the public and banned at the time of their inception. Tickets range from $32-$72 in DC and $20-$30 in Baltimore and can be purchased via www.inseries.org. Voted as audience choice for IN Series’ 2019-20 season, this circus version of Rigoletto – complete with a circus band and bawdy new text by Bari Biern – became a victim of COVID-19. But long before that, the opera fell victim to 19th-century censors who found its exploration of the misdeeds of the powerful too dangerous for the public eye. At once darkly devilish, toe-tappingly infectious, and horrifically funny, Verdi’s masterpiece is made intimate, in-your-face, and inescapably enjoyable under the big top, with a cast led by In Series’ Artistic Director Timothy Nelson and Head of Music Emily Baltzer. “Censorship in the arts is as old as theater itself,” says Timothy Nelson. “But no composer dealt more with more censorship than Giuseppe Verdi,” who was a “fervent patriot and advocate for the home rule of the Italian people against the Austrian oppressors that ruled the many territories that would later become the nation of Italy.” Rigoletto proved the most notable political censorship the composer faced. Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave loosely based the opera (originally titled La Maledizione or The Curse) on Victor Hugo’s work Le roi s’amuse (The King Amuses Himself), which centers around King Francis I and his court jester Triboulet. To placate the censors who were outraged by this derisive depiction of power, Piave altered the storyline to remove the character of the jester entirely. Nelson explains, “Verdi would not consider it. The clown was what was meaningful to him, essential, and the King (the tenor) was merely a foil.” The two instead appeased the censors by moving the action and characters to Mantua, where the court jester became Rigoletto. To further transform Verdi’s opera in a way that resonates with contemporary American audiences, Nelson commissioned opera librettist and frequent IN Series collaborator Bari Biern to create a new, English adaptation, centered around the lives of circus performers. Biern writes, “This opera, like a three-ring circus, has everything. In the first ring, vengeance! In the second, love and seduction. In the third, tragedy. And, let’s not forget, popcorn and balloons! Rigoletto is also a high-wire act without a net. One wrong choice, and a character can lose their balance…or their life.” Further productions in IN Series’ 2024-25 season include Monteverdi’s Poppea, which runs March 14-30 at DuPont Underground, St. Mark’s Capitol Hill and Baltimore Theatre Project. The composer’s most famous and audacious final opera of love, power, sex, and betrayal will be brought to life by Artistic Director Timothy Nelson in collaboration with Indian-Canadian choreographer Hari Krishnan and the INnovātiō Orchestra, IN Series’ own period baroque band, blending music of South India in an evening of whirling passion, music, poetry, and Bharatanatyam dance. Concluding the season May 17 – June 1 is the long-awaited world premiere of Ethiopia, a “living newspaper” written by Arthur Arent in 1937 that fuses theater and music to tell the story of Italy’s colonialist attack on Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia while the world stayed silent. Banned by the Roosevelt administration and never performed, the work has been revived by playwright Sybil R. Williams with new music by Janella Gill and will be showcased at Greenberg Theatre and Baltimore Theatre Project. PRODUCTION INFORMATION RIGOLETTO G. VERDI, New English Text by Bari Biern Timothy Nelson, Stage Director Emily Baltzer, Music Director CAST: Brian Arreola – The Duke Teresa Ferrara – Gilda Elizabeth Mondragon – Maddalena Chad Louwerse – Rigoletto Andrew Adelsberger – Sparafucile Greg Sliskovich – Borsa Henrique Carvahlo – Marulo PERFORMANCE DATES The Cecile Goldman Theater DCJCC 1529 16th St NW, Washington, DC Ticket prices: Reserved Seating: $72 General-Middle: $57 General-Rear: $42 Student: $35 Performances: Saturday, December 7 at 7:30pm – Reception to follow Sunday, December 8 at 2:30pm – Talk-back to follow Saturday, December 14 at 7:30pm Sunday, December 15 at 2:30pm The Baltimore Theatre Project 45 W Preston St, Baltimore, MD Ticket prices: General: $30 Seniors and Students: $20 Performances: Wednesday, December 11 at 7:30pm Thursday, December 12 at 7:30pm ABOUT IN SERIES IN Series is the standard-bearer for innovative opera theater in Washington DC. IN Series makes theater from music: transforming artists, audiences, and community by disrupting expectations, nourishing empathy, stimulating insight, and deepening the conversation. IN Series envisions a thriving global community in which opera is a fully integrated and essential part of collective conversation. In picturing the journey to this end, IN Series is a change-maker – a force that, with each groundbreaking production and outreach event, radically transforms perceptions of the “who”, “what”, “where”, and “why” of opera: who gets to make opera and for whom is it made; what is defined as an operatic experience; where operas take place; why we make opera; and why opera matters. Founded by Carla Hübner in 1982 as a concert series of the former Mount Vernon College, “The In Series” became an independent non-profit arts organization in 2000 and has been a resident company at Source Theater since 2008. Timothy Nelson assumed the artistic directorship in 2018, quickly establishing the newly rebranded “IN Series” as DC’s home for “Thought, debate, history, and innovation” in opera.