Rigolletto

Garrett Lambur
The Opera Rigelletto was an amazing experience for myself. I had never seen an opera before and upon arriving at the State Opera building we discovered that we were to be sitting not on the second balcony but rather in the third row center. I was incredibly happy upon first discovering this but my happiness rose to new levels the more of the Opera that we witnessed. It was wonderfully performed and had my attention completely. Other than straining one’s neck to read the subtitles at the top of the Opera it was a wonderful experience. One thing from the Opera struck my personally though, that of cursing another. I have never given much thought to cursing another because in the world I grew up in cursing was using the “curse” words. But cursing another in Rigolletto was wishing ill upon that person in a certain manner. I have had instances of wishing ill upon another because of one thing or another but after seeing what could possibly happen in Rigolletto I have had a new heart upon the subject. A curse that I have used before and will probably use again much to my dismay is the simple one of Go to hell. But who would ever truly wish this upon another human being; hell is a horrible place, though I’m not sure how much I believe of Dante’s recounting of hell but that is discussion for another time. Either way hell is for those who have done enough wrong to warrant going there and not going to heaven. It is not the place of a human being to decide what will send you to hell or not for we do not rule over heaven or hell. Though this may be a strange lesson to learn from Rigolletto I feel it is something that I will try to avoid in the future. I will be hypocritical for some time, since I know the phrase will be uttered from my mouth, but I hope to stop using it in a future attempt to get rid of it. I may not stop using curse words, though I know I probably should, but I will stop cursing people or rather wishing ill upon them. One should not wish ill upon any human being no matter what, for doing so can only breed hatred and out of that hatred little good will ever come. For hatred is what gives life to the dark side of the force and the dark side of the force is never a good thing, just as Anakin, he lost his two children to it.