“Rigoletto,” Giuseppe Verdi’s tragic 1851 opera about a revenge plot gone horribly awry, carries more than its fair share of 19th-century baggage. Houston Grand Opera’s latest production, which opens Friday at the Wortham Center, brings the story’s lurid qualities into sharp relief through garish costumes and surrealistic set design.

Verdi’s sublime music stirs a cauldron seething with deceptions, disguises, kidnapping, and murder. The action revolves around the powerful Duke of Mantua, a nobleman cad who seduces commoners and courtiers’ wives alike with impunity. His jester Rigoletto, who insults members of the Duke’s court for a living, is also an overprotective father who keeps his daughter, Gilda, under virtual house arrest.