This gives a striking picture of that extraordinary "first night." Verdi was born at a time of turmoil and political troubles, and his mother was one of the many women of the inhabitants of Roncole (where he was born) who took refuge in the church when soldiery invaded the village. There, near the Virgin, many of the women had thought themselves safe, but the men burst in, and a general massacre took place. Verdi's mother fled with her little son to the belfry and this alone saved to the world a wonderful genius. When Verdi was ten years old he was apprenticed to a grocer in Busseto, but he was a musical grocer, and the musical atmosphere, which was life to Verdi, surrounded him. He had a passion for leaving in the midst of his grocery business to sit at the spinet and hunt out new harmonious combinations: and when one of his new-made chords was lost he would fly into a terrible rage, although as a general rule he was a peaceable and kindly little chap. On one such occasion he became so enraged that he took a hammer to the instrument--an event coincident with a thrashing his father gave him. There is no end of incident connected with this gentle and kindly soul, who, unlike so many of his fellow geniuses, reflected in his life the beauty of his art. RIGOLETTO CHARACTERS OF THE OPERA, WITH THE ORIGINAL CAST AS PRESENTED AT THE FIRST PERFORMANCE The Duke of Mantua Signori Mirate Rigoletto Varesi Sparafucile Ponz Count Monterone Damini Marullo Kunnerth Matteo Borsa Zuliani Count Ceprano Bellini Usher of the Court Rizzi Gilda Signore Teresa Brambilla Maddalena Casaloni Giovanna. Saini Countess Ceprano Morselli Page Modes Lovati The story belongs to the sixteenth century, in the city of Mantua and its environs. Composer: Giuseppe Verdi. Author: Francesco Maria Piave. First sung in Venice, Gran Teatro la Fenice. March 11, 1851. ACT I Dukes and duchesses, pages and courtiers, dancing and laughter: these things all happening to music and glowing lights, in the city of Mantua four hundred years ago!--that is "Rigoletto." There lived, long ago, in Mantua, the Duke and his suite, and the only member of his household who dared do as he pleased was the Duke of Mantua's jester, Rigoletto. The more deformed a jester happened to be, the more he was valued in his profession, and Rigoletto was a very ugly little man, and as vindictive and wicked as he was ill-favoured in appearance. The only thing he truly loved was his daughter, Gilda. As for the Duke of Mantua, he loved for the time being almost any pretty woman who came his way.