Pigoletto



Pigoletto was the name given to the opera put on by the Muppets for Beverly Sills in episode 409 of The Muppet Show. Sills headlines a cast of pigs on a cityscape river bank in 18th century Paris, using material from a number of Giuseppe Verdi operas.

The sketch begins with Sills singing "Sempre libera" from Verdi's four-act opera, La Traviata. She is interupted by a pig (performed by Richard Hunt) dressed accordingly as a matador for a comical rendition of "The Toreador Song" with new lyrics. This overlaps and segues back to Sills, who is again interupted, this time by Miss Piggy in her premiere performance as Cleopatra. She makes her entrance on a ship manned by two pig slaves who row to the beat of Verdi's "Grand March" from his 1871 opera Aida. Having travelled forward in time hundreds of years, and no short distance across the Mediterranean Sea, she challenges Sills to a battle of the voice.

Left to continue her solo, Sills barely gets to sing a chorus of the song she began the sketch with, when Dr. Strangepork leads yet another group of pigs in their version of "La donna è mobile" from Verdi's Rigoletto, the name of which the sketch is based. The first set of pigs joins them and take a note from Sills' melody, which they turn into the lyric "God Bless America." Cleopatra returns for the finale and the reception of flowers thrown onto the stage from the audience.