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For a moment there seems real potential in the director Michael Mayer’s concept, “the Rat Pack ‘Rigoletto,’ ” as it has come to be known from the advance publicity and reporting. Mr. Mayer and his production team zap the story from 16th-century Mantua to the Las Vegas of the early 1960s. As originally conceived, Verdi’s Duke is a licentious ruler attended to by crude courtiers who procure him women and envy his power. To Mr. Mayer this practically screamed Las Vegas in the heyday of the Rat Pack.

His concept is hardly audacious. It is not even that original, since the director Jonathan Miller set his landmark “Rigoletto” — first seen at the English National Opera in 1982 and much revived — in the Little Italy of 1950s New York, with the Duke transformed into a mob boss.

But Mr. Mayer, who won a deserved Tony Award for his hypercharged directing of the musical “Spring Awakening,” has brought theatrical flair to his operatic debut, and there are dynamic elements in this colorful, if muddled and ill-defined, “Rigoletto.” Especially at the start, when Mr. Beczala sings the boastful aria “Questa o quella.” To the Duke all women — this one, that one — are the same, and jealous husbands can just back off.

Christine Jones’s wonderfully ornate set depicts the casino against a back wall of beckoning neon signs. Susan Hilferty’s costumes for the Duke’s hangers-on include tuxedo jackets in varying colors and patterns that compete for tackiness. When the Duke sings, sequined showgirls bearing huge feathered fans surround him.

And Mr. Beczala, looking jaunty and loose, sings with ringing tone and ardor, accompanied deftly by the 33-year-old Italian conductor Michele Mariotti, who has a sure feel for the give-and-take singers need to shape a Verdi line. This was an excellent outing for this rising conductor, who made his Met debut last fall in Bizet’s “Carmen.”

Of course, for Mr. Mayer, shifting the story to Las Vegas in the 1960s was no doubt the easy part. There...