The At Ease with Opera series returns to the Kansas City Public Library on Monday, March 1, with Don Dagenais presenting The Galley Years: Verdi’s Path to Rigoletto at 7 p.m. at the Plaza Branch, 4801 Main St.

Dagenais will discuss how Verdi’s early career influenced his three great mid-career operas, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, and La Traviata. The discussion will include audio and video excerpts.

Rigoletto is one of those "chestnuts" in the operatic repertory that continue to draw opera cognoscenti to the box office. It is considered by many to be the first of the operatic masterpieces of Giuseppe Verdi's middle-to-late compositional career.

The program complements the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s March production of Rigoletto.