“Received wisdom has it that the home stretch of your typical Lyric Opera season is generally not the place to find important company debuts. So much for received wisdom. The company scored one such coup Thursday afternoon when Zeljko Lucic took over the title role of the humpbacked jester in Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto.’ In all respects the Serbian baritone proved more commanding than … his predecessor in the first cast. He earned the audience’s gratitude for investing so finely detailed a character study with such robust, idiomatic singing. Rigoletto is one of Verdi’s touchstone baritone parts and Lucic inhabited it with a large, powerful, incisive sound, supple phrasing and sure dramatic instincts. And he stepped with ease into the action scheme, from the father’s solicitous tenderness toward his beloved daughter Gilda to his bitter railing at the courtiers who have abducted Gilda for the Duke’s pleasure.... This was an impressive Lyric debut.”