The colleague who sent the following item to La Cieca called it “the best opera story of the year,” and your doyenne cannot but agree.

It seems that back in 2001 a young actor named Juan Pablo di Pace did a nude scene in David McVicar‘s production of Rigoletto for the Royal Opera. A photograph of a scene from the opera (including the starkers super) has been used since then in the ROH’s advertising of the production. (Meanwhile, Juan Pablo has risen from the ranks of nude walkons to achieve fame and fortune as a star of the BBC Scotland soap River City.) 

Now, don’t get him wrong, Juan Pablo is totally okay with nudity. the problem here is that in the Rigoletto photo “a crucial part of his anatomy has been air-brushed unflatteringly, making it appear much smaller than it is in real life.”

Apparently each time the photo was recycled for another advertising campaign, the Photoshop police snipped a smidge more off poor Juan Pablo’s package, to the point that the 2005 version of the poster “made it look like he barely had one at all.”

You can click on the image to enlarge. The photo, I mean.

The original article in the Daily Mail helpfully adds that the Verdi’s opera “tells the story of Rigoletto, a bitter hunchbacked jester who seeks vengeance on the Duke of Mantua for seducing his only daughter. But the plan backfires and leads to tragedy.” Not unlike Juan Pablo’s nude scene, La Cieca concludes.