The Boston Lyric Opera presents a new production of Verdi's decadent opera of passion and revenge set in a small Renaissance Italian town.

Michael Mayes makes his Lyric Opera debut in the lead role of Rigoletto, the court jester bent on protecting his beautiful daughter form the advances of his audacious employer, The Duke of Mantua. Bruce Sledge also debuts as the Duke, with the part of Gilda, the jester's daughter, played by Nadine Sierra. Christopher Franklin conducts for the first time at the Lyric Opera.