Every character in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto goes way overboard for love.

Hunchbacked jester Rigoletto loves daughter Gilda so much he locks her inside the house, except for Sunday church services. Gilda, fragile and virginal, knows not the ways of the world, and suffers, tragically, love at first sight. The wanton Duke of Mantua, hot for any new woman he spies, puts the make on Gilda in the guise of a poor student. Hired assassin Sparafucile and sister Maddalena, who lures in the Johns, kill anyone for 20 scudi. They love money more than life. In any form, love is an obsession in Verdi's seventeenth opera, the one that truly put him on the map and established him without doubt as the preeminent composer for the theater.

Bellini was dead, Rossini had retired, and Donizetti had gone mad. Verdi was next in line to inherit the mantle of his great predecessors, and Rigoletto (1851) pushed him front and center. Although Verdi composed some stinkers in his career up until then, the ear-opening Nabucco and Macbeth made him famous throughout Italy, but this shocking story, sublimely depicted in music, made him internationally renowned. That it contained copious amounts of sex and violence – adapted from Victor Hugo's Le Roi s’Amuse that had been banned in France after one performance – greatly contributed to its success.

Full of blood and thunder, unbridled lust, toxic masculinity, and an assault on innocence, Verdi's opera was ripe for condemnation from the skittish 19th-century censors. He was well aware that Hugo's play had caused a scandal, but he also knew that a good story, adult and shocking, would sell a lot of seats. He didn't suffer fools greatly. So while he and librettist Piave made minor concessions to the Austrian bluestockings who controlled Venice's fabled La Fenice opera house that had commissioned the work, he carried on.

But it was Verdi’s uniquely dramatic and masterful handling of these three-dimensional characters (a self-loathing jester; his boss, a debauched Duke; the jester’s virginal daughter; and a paid assassin who pimps out his sister) and their musically apt portraits that truly made this opera an instant classic.
Opera in the Heights’ production supplies all the requisite drama and dramatic voices. Baritone Nathan Matticks (Rigoletto) is a thunderous yet sympathetic jester, whose vengeful wrath is heartfelt and terrifically portrayed. Thundering all on his own, tenor Alex Boyer (the amoral Duke of Mantua) could be heard down Heights Boulevard. While not textbook libertine, his voluminous voice bespeaks passion and desire. The role's a killer, high in the register and going full blast in some of opera's most famous arias: “La donna é mobile” (Woman is fickle); “É il sol dell'anima” (Love is the soul's sunshine); "Questa o quella" (This woman or that). He sings the hell out of them all, but has a tendency to step up a half tone to get to the peaks. He's like an old-fashioned Italian tenor, barking beautifully. He even looks a bit like Caruso. Not a bad comparison.

Soprano Catherine Goode (innocent Gilda) possesses a silvery bright soprano and the inner radiance of a Renaissance penitent. She looks glamorous in Shaun Heath and Mary Webber's pseudo-16th century garb (the costuming is very good throughout), but what a voice, neatly navigating Verdi's treacherous filigree in her classics “Caro nome” (Sweet name), her paean to the flirtatious Duke; “Tutte le feste al tempio” (On all the holy days), her poignant confession to her father after being ravished by the Duke; and “V'ho ingannato” (I deceived you), her dying words. Her thrilling sound rides easily over anything Verdi throws at her. Beautiful work.

As if they've stepped out of a painting by Caravaggio, bass-baritone Aiden Smerud (Sparafucile) and mezzo Aviana Burkepile (Maddelena) are picture perfect villains. Being bad-ass, they eat up the stage, singing gloriously as they slink through the shadows doing their dirty work with a smile, a shiv, and a bit of leg.

Alyssa Weathersby's direction is clean if not very deep. The best bit of business is the Duke crushing grapes in his hand during “Donna é mobile” then licking his palm lasciviously. Adam Crinson's set design is rather unappetizing in diamond swirls of red and blue with a hinged door to delineate exterior scenes from the interior ones. It doesn't work since everyone walks around it like it doesn't exist.

The OH chorus sounds glorious as either debauched courtiers whispering dangerously as they abduct Gilda or sighing like the wind in Act III's storm scene, one of Verdi's most characteristic and evocative tone poems as piccolos depict lightning flashes. Maestro Eiki Isomura leads Verdi through his paces, roaring through those trumpet denunciations of vengeance or innocently purring through the love duets. He loves his Verdi and you can hear it clear and clean.

After the Venice smash hit premiere of Rigoletto, Verdi attained superstardom. Verdi became Verdi, and opera would never be the same again. Come witness the transformation.

Rigoletto continues at 2 p.m. March 26; 7:30 p.m. March 31; 2 p.m. April 2. Opera in the Heights at Lambert Hall, 1703 Heights Boulevard. For more information, call 713-861-5303 or visit operaintheheights.org. $42-$87.50.