UN BALLO IN MASCHERA
Locations of Un ballo in maschera

When Verdi was born in 1813, Italy consisted of a group of smaller states that included the Kingdom of Italy, the Empire of France, the Kingdom of Sicily, and so on. Largely as a result of the Napoleonic wars, a traveler from Rome to Milan would probably have had to change money and present papers at a series of borders. Italy was finally unified in 1870-71 after the movement called Risorgimento took hold and reclaimed the land for the Italians. Verdi himself was deeply involved in the political process and the reorganization of the country. This is important to understand, particularly when dealing with an opera like Un ballo in maschera.

Because of the political instability, all artistic endeavors, especially theatrical ones, were subject to scrutiny by censors—not only on the Italian peninsula, but in almost every country in Europe. A plot so highly charged as Un ballo in maschera might have given pause to Verdi and his librettist, Antonia Somma, when they decided to set it for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. But the story, a fictionalized account of a real event—the 1792 assassination of Gustave III of Sweden during a masked ball—had already been presented successfully in 1833 by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber as an opéra historique in five acts called Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué to a libretto by Eugène Scribe, and had also interested Bellini and Mercadante. Clearly, Verdi and Somma thought they would be home free with their own version of the same story. Not so.

The libretto had to pass the censors, who insisted on a number of alterations. The King had to be demoted to Duke. The scenario had to take place in an ancient time period. There could also be no guns displayed on stage. Verdi and Somma agreed, and the work was to be called Una vendetta in domino (A Masked Revenge). What composer, librettists, and censors did not count on was the attempt on Napoleon’s life that took place in Paris on 14 January 1858. Rather than face the Neapolitan censors again, Verdi and Somma proposed their opera to the Roman impresario, Vincenzo Jacovicci, who was excited about the project. The Roman censors, however, were no less inflexible than the Neapolitans, and they suggested the opera be called Il conte di Gothemburg. Verdi and Somma saw the only way out to be the removal of the setting from Europe altogether to that completely foreign venue, colonial Boston. And as such Un ballo in maschera premiered in Rome on 17 February 1858, featuring the characters of Riccardo, Earl of Warwick, Governor of Boston (Gustavus III, King of Sweden); Renato, a Creole, Riccardo’s secretary (Count Anckarström); Amelia, Riccardo’s wife; Ulrica, a fortune teller (Mam’zelle Arvidson); and Samuel (Count Ribbing) and Tom (Count Horn), enemies of the Earl.

- Helen Greenwald, Professor of Musicology, New England Conservatory