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Cecilia Stinton's new production of Rigoletto for Opera Holland Park updates its setting from Renaissance Mantua to the Bullingdon Club in the 1920s. And, while I was a little uncertain about this device at first – how would the dark power plays pan out, the roles of Duke and Jester make sense – it soon became clear that it was going to work. The Duke is still, well, a Duke and his jester becomes a veteran of the Great War, medals pinned to his chest, with a gammy leg and, wearing a bowler hat, presumably the college porter. The Bullingdon boys half drown a new boy in an absurd initiation rite, the opening party is full of cricket whites and rowers' blazers and the music begins as a jazzed-up version of Verdi played on a scratchy 78. Rigoletto has more than a touch of grand guignol and it has to be said that some of this is lost in its translation to a more modern era. When Monterone lays his curse on Rigoletto, for instance, it is hard to grasp why this makes him so fear
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