Un ballo in maschera
Live music
Wednesday 28 April · 20:00
Verdi's opera about a king in love with his best friend's wife, a political conspiracy and a masked ball where all the threads of the plot converge; this new São Carlos production adds another chapter to Lisbon's long relationship with the work.
A king in love with his best friend's wife; a conspirator who discovers the betrayal too late to act honourably; a fortune-teller whose prophecy no one wants to believe; and a masked ball where all the threads of the plot converge. Premiered at the Teatro Apollo in Rome on 17 February 1859, Un ballo in maschera is one of Verdi's most singular works. The story of its creation is as dramatic as the plot itself: commissioned by the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples, it was blocked by the censors in the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Napoleon III of France. Verdi refused the censors' corrections and eventually broke his contract with the Neapolitan institution. When it finally reached the stage, with the original Swedish setting transformed under Roman censorship into colonial Boston, the opera had survived a lawsuit and two years of obstacles. The libretto by Antonio Somma, inspired by Eugène Scribe, is based on a historical event: the murder of King Gustav III of Sweden at a masked ball in 1792. In Verdi's hands, a political conspiracy and a secret love become inextricable, as the friendship between the King and Renato, his adviser, collapses under the weight of a passion neither can control. The score moves between tragedy and lightness with remarkable ease, especially in the pages entrusted to Oscar, the King's page, whose music radiates the distinctly French lightness that Verdi absorbed from his experience on Parisian stages. Lisbon holds a special place in the history of this opera: on 15 April 1860, just over a year after the Rome premiere, the then Royal Theatre of São Carlos was the first opera house to stage Un ballo in maschera outside Italy, with Gaetano Fraschini, the tenor who had created the title role, repeating it in the Portuguese capital. Since then, the opera has returned to São Carlos several times. This new production adds another chapter to that long relationship.