The Vineyard Touring Opera will offer Verdi’s Rigoletto performed live with orchestra a 2 p.m. at the Claremont?Woman’s Club on Sunday, November 17.

 Rigoletto is based on the play Le roi s’amuse by Victor Hugo. It has been described a “casually cruel” opera where all the main characters—licentious Duke of Mantua, his hunch-backed court jester Rigoletto, and Rigoletto’s sheltered daughter Gilda—are overtly self-involved. It is a world where others are nothing more than props for the Duke, with Rigoletto’s role to ruthlessly setup the props for the Duke, and Gilda, so obsessed with her own first love, she blows right through all those red flags to make a grand gesture that really only results in misery for Rigoletto. 

The opera’s original title, La maledizione (The Curse), refers to a curse placed on both the Duke and Rigoletto by a courtier whose daughter the Duke has seduced with Rigoletto’s encouragement. The curse comes to fruition when Gilda falls in love with the Duke and sacrifices her life to save him from the assassin hired by her father.

Additional nearby performances are at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 2 at the South Pasadena Woman’s Club; 2:30 p.m. on Sunday November 3 at the Northridge Woman’s Club; 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov 9 at the Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica.

General admission ticket prices are $30 door or $25 in advance; seniors and student tickets are $25 at the door, $20 in advance.

Tickets are available at vtopera.org. For information call (909) 229-4410.