Rigoletto (E)

Conductor: James Levine

Stars: Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Cornell MacNeil, Plácido Domingo, Ileana Cotrubas

Out to buy: On DVD

This raid on the Metropolitan Opera’s back catalogue of television broadcasts dates from November 1977. It stars two of the biggest names of the decade, with Domingo as the heartless seducer the Duke of Mantua and Cotrubas as Rigoletto’s hapless daughter, Gilda. MacNeil impresses as the mocked court jester Rigoletto, but it is two of the minor characters who steal the show: Justino Díaz as the assassin Sparafucile and Isola Jones as his sister; she even engenders some chemistry with the lumpen Domingo, which is quite a feat. As for the production, the best one can say about it is that, like so many Met productions of that era, it looks really expensive.