A trio of operas in three short stories - the first a gruesome murder melodrama, the second is a passionate tearjerker, and the third is a dark comedy of death and an inheritance. Each story is strikingly different from the preceding one.
Rigoletto, jester to the Duke, has made enemies of everyone at court. The men kidnap his mistress, unaware she is Rigoletto's daughter. When Rigoletto finds the Duke has used his daughter, he plans his own revenge, but it backfires.
Starving artist and consumptive seamstress fall in love, have trouble maintaining the relationship. His painter friend also has romantic troubles with his ambitious grisette.