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Rigoletto was a great box-office success for La Fenice and Verdi's first major Italian triumph since the 1847 premiere of Macbeth in Florence.

It initially had a run of 13 performances and was revived in Venice the following year, and again in 1854.

Despite a rather disastrous production in Bergamo shortly after its initial run at La Fenice, the opera soon entered the repertory of Italian theatres.

By 1852, it had premiered in all the major cities of Italy, although sometimes under different titles due to the vagaries of censorship ( e. g. as Viscardello, Lionello, and Clara de Perth ).

From 1852, it also began to be performed in major cities world worldwide, reaching as far afield as Alexandria and Constantinople in 1854 and both Montevideo and Havana in 1855.

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.

In the US, the opera was first seen on 19 February 1855 at New York's Academy of Music.