Despite serious initial problems with the Austrian censors who had control over northern Italian theatres at the time, the opera had a triumphant premiere at La Fenice in Venice on 11 March 1851.

He initially asked Francesco Maria Piave (with whom he had already created Ernani, I due Foscari, Macbeth, Il corsaro and Stiffelio) to examine the play Kean by Alexandre Dumas, père, but soon came to believe that they needed to find a more energetic subject.

The play had been banned in France following its premiere nearly twenty years earlier (not to be staged again until 1882);[3] now it was to come before the Austrian Board of Censors (as Austria at that time directly controlled much of Northern Italy.)

As Verdi wrote in a letter to Piave: "Use four legs, run through the town and find me an influential person who can obtain the permission for making Le Roi s'amuse.

"[4] Piave set to work revising the libretto, eventually pulling from it another opera, Il Duca di Vendome, in which the sovereign was a duke and both the hunchback and the curse disappeared.

[5] Brenna, La Fenice's sympathetic secretary, mediated the dispute by showing the Austrians some letters and articles depicting the bad character, but great value, of the artist.

Varesi was very uncomfortable with the false hump he had to wear; he was so uncertain that, even though he was quite an experienced singer, he had a panic attack when it was his turn to enter the stage.

The UK premiere took place on 14 May 1853 at what is now the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London with Giovanni Matteo Mario as the Duke of Mantua and Giorgio Ronconi as Rigoletto, conducted by Michael Costa.

At a ball in his palace, the Duke sings of a life of pleasure with as many women as possible, and mentions that he particularly enjoys cuckolding his courtiers: "Questa o quella" ("This woman or that").

Preoccupied with the old man's curse, Rigoletto approaches the house where he is concealing his daughter from the world and is accosted by the assassin Sparafucile, who walks up to him and offers his services.

When Rigoletto has gone, the Duke appears and overhears Gilda confess to her nurse Giovanna that she feels guilty for not having told her father about a young man she had met at the church.

"), while the hostile courtiers outside the walled garden (believing Gilda to be the jester's mistress, unaware she is his daughter) get ready to abduct the helpless girl.

Through a large arch on the ground floor a rustic tavern can be seen as well as a rough stone staircase that leads to an attic room with a small bed which is in full view as there are no shutters.

Gilda laments that the Duke is unfaithful; Rigoletto assures her that he is arranging revenge: "Bella figlia dell'amore" ("Beautiful daughter of love").

Gilda, overhearing this exchange, resolves to sacrifice herself for the Duke, and enters the house: "Trio: Se pria ch'abbia il mezzo la notte toccato".

Weighting it with stones, he is about to cast the sack into the river when he hears the voice of the Duke, sleepily singing a reprise of his "La donna è mobile" aria.

[22] At curtain rise, great contrast is immediately felt as jolly dance music is played by an offstage band while the Duke and his courtiers have a lighthearted conversation.

The Duke sings the cynical "Questa o quella" to a flippant tune and then further contrast is again achieved as he attempts to seduce the Countess Ceprano while the strings of a chamber orchestra onstage play an elegant minuet.

Slithery effects in the strings accompany Rigoletto as he brutally mocks the old man, who responds with his curse, leading to a final dramatic ensemble.

In its great variety of tone and texture, its use of instrumental resources (the orchestra in the pit, an offstage band, and a chamber ensemble of strings on the stage), its dramatic pacing and the way the music is continuous rather than consisting of one "number" after another, this concise opening scene is unprecedented in Italian opera.

[22] The famous quartet in act three is actually a double duet with each of the characters given a musical identity—the ardent wooing of the Duke, with the main melody, as Maddalena laughingly puts him off, while outside Gilda has a sobbing figure in her vocal line and her father implacably urges revenge.

[23] Victor Hugo resented his play, which had been banned in France, being transformed into an Italian opera and considered it plagiarism (there were no copyright restrictions against this at the time).

[24] When Hugo attended a performance of the opera in Paris, however, he marveled at the way Verdi's music in the quartet allowed the emotions of the four different characters to be heard together and yet distinguished clearly from each other at the same time and wished that he could achieve such an effect in a spoken drama.

[26] Very different from the storm music that can be heard in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia or La Cenerentola, that of the storm in Rigoletto is not an interlude between acts or scenes, but is totally integrated into the unfolding of the plot, with its strings in the bass register, its interventions of oboe and piccolo, and especially the male chorus behind the scenes humming through closed mouths to create the sound of the wind, a completely original effect.

After the first performance in Venice in 1851 the Gazzetta ufficiale di Venezia deplored the fact that in his opinion the libretto was inspired by "the Satanic school" and Verdi and Piave had sought beauty from the "deformed and repulsive".

"[31] In the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Rigoletto has received high praise even from avant-garde and experimental composers such as Luigi Dallapiccola, Luciano Berio and Ernst Krenek.

[23] Igor Stravinsky wrote "I say that in the aria 'La donna è mobile', for example, which the elite thinks only brilliant and superficial, there is more substance and feeling than in the whole of Wagner's Ring cycle.

[32] The Duke of Mantua's arias, particularly "La donna è mobile" and "Questa o quella", have long been showcases for the tenor voice and appear on numerous recital discs.

On 15 April 1923, Lee de Forest presented 18 short films in his sound-on-film process Phonofilm, including an excerpt of act 2 of Rigoletto with Eva Leoni and Company.

Curtiss Clayton's 2003 film Rick, set in modern-day New York, has a plot based on Rigoletto, but apart from "La donna è mobile" heard in the background during a restaurant scene, does not include any other music from the opera.