Un Ballo in Maschera

World premiere: Teatro Apollo, Rome, 1859
Composed in the middle of Giuseppe Verdi’s prolific career, Un Ballo in Maschera is replete with the kind of passionate vocal outpourings that make his earlier works so compelling but also shows signs of the composer’s musical evolution—which would reach its fruition in the later masterpieces Otello and Falstaff. The opera’s story came from history—Sweden’s King Gustav III was assassinated by a political enemy during a masked ball at the Stockholm Opera House in 1792. But in Verdi’s hands, the tale transcends mere historical reenactment: As he did in many of his most celebrated creations, the composer uses it as an opportunity to explore the intersection of the public and private lives of those in power.

This opera suffered from the interference of censors of the Kingdom of Naples, who objected to the depiction of a royal assassination on the stage. Somma offered a revised libretto, moving the action to colonial Boston. This alternate setting, despite its odd incongruities, became the opera’s standard version well into the second half of the 20th century. In recent years, though, the original Swedish setting has often been restored, as in the previous and the current Met productions.