Un ballo in maschera

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Work data
Title: A masked ball
Original title: Un ballo in maschera
Title page of the piano reduction from 1860, final scene

Title page of the piano reduction from 1860, final scene

Shape: Opera in three acts
Original language: Italian
Music: Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto : Antonio Somma
Literary source: Eugène Scribe , Gustave III. ou Le bal masqué
Premiere: February 17, 1859
Place of premiere: Teatro Apollo Rome
Playing time: approx. 2 ¼ hours
Place and time of the action: Boston and environs, late 17th century (newer version based on the original design: Stockholm and environs, 1792)
people
  • Riccardo, Count of Warwick, Governor of Boston / Gustavo, King Gustav III. from Sweden ( tenor )
  • Renato / Count Anckarström, his secretary ( baritone )
  • Amelia, his wife ( soprano )
  • Ulrica ( Ulrica Arfvidsson ), fortune teller ( alto or mezzo-soprano )
  • Oscar, Page Riccardos ( soprano )
  • Silvano / Cristiano, sailor (baritone)
  • Tom / Graf Horn, conspirator ( bass )
  • Samuel / Graf Ribbing, conspirator (bass)
  • A judge (tenor)
  • Servant of Amelia (tenor)
  • Courtiers, ambassadors, officers, artists, scholars, servants, dancers, soldiers, citizens, farmers, sailors, boatmen, people ( choir )

Un ballo in maschera (German: A masked ball ) - subtitled Amelia - is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi . The libretto by Antonio Somma is based on Eugène Scribe's drama Gustave III. ou Le bal masqué . The first performance took place on February 17, 1859 at the Teatro Apollo in Rome.

action

first act

First picture: Count Riccardo's audience room

Count Riccardo is expected by citizens and nobles, petitioners and courtiers. He enters and checks some documents. Oscar hands him the list of guests invited to the upcoming masquerade ball. Riccardo takes a look at it and is pleased that his secret love Amelia, the wife of his secretary Renato, is also listed. Renato, who is also the Count's best friend, warns him of a conspiracy. But the count takes the warning calmly. Then the judge comes up with a verdict against the fortune teller Ulrica , who is to be expelled from the country. The page Oscar stands up for the fortune teller and reports that so far everything she predicted has come true. Riccardo wants to check this and asks everyone present to accompany him to the fortune teller in disguise.

Second picture: Fortune teller Ulrica's hut

The sailor Silvano asks Ulrica whether he will be rewarded for the sacrifices he has made for years in the Count's service. The fortune teller predicts all sorts of good things for him and that he will soon be rich. Count Riccardo, disguised as a fisherman, secretly slips a bag full of coins into the sailor's pocket. When the sailor comes back to his bag, the joy is great that part of the prophecy has already been fulfilled. A servant comes and announces the arrival of a great person. Ulrica sends everyone out of the cave. Riccardo has recognized Amelia's servant and is hiding. When Amelia appears, she tells the fortune teller that she loves someone, but that she wants a remedy for this love. As an antidote, Ulrica recommends a magical herb that grows on the gallows hill outside the city gates. Amelia would have to pick it herself and tonight. This moves away again. The courtiers come back. Then Riccardo, still incognito, comes to the fortune teller and has his future predicted. Ulrica tells him that he will soon be murdered by whoever shakes his hand next. Riccardo goes up to everyone standing by with an outstretched hand, but nobody wants to take this hand. Renato appears and greets his friend Riccardo with a handshake. He laughs at the prophecy just made. But Ulrica warns him.

Second act

On the Gallows Hill, at the gates of Boston

Mariano Padilla and Sarolta de Bujanovis as Renato and Amelia, 1867

Amelia went to the gallows to pick the cabbage. Riccardo followed her secretly. At his urging, she confesses her love to him, but also that she wants to tear this love out of her heart. You hear footsteps. Amelia can barely hide her face with a veil when her husband, Renato, appears. He informs Riccardo that there are conspirators on the march who want to murder him. Riccardo hands the woman over to Renato with the order not to lift the lady's veil. Then he hurries away. The conspirators appear and are disappointed because they only find the secretary with a lady. At least they want to know who the lady is. Renato wants to protect the lady with the sword from the intrusiveness of the conspirators when suddenly Amelia tears down the veil herself. Renato is horrified: his wife is having a fight with Riccardo! The conspirators mock the secretary. He composes himself again and allies himself with the conspirators.

Third act

First picture: Renato's study

Renato accuses his wife of infidelity and wants to kill her. She asks her husband to be allowed to see her little son again beforehand (Arie Morrò, ma prima in grazia ). Renato, alone, decides to punish Riccardo for infidelity rather than his own wife. Then the conspirators Samuel and Tom join him. Renato shows them the conspiracy, but not to betray them, but to participate. The lot is to decide who is allowed to stab Riccardo in the back. Amelia, who has just returned to the room, is to draw the lot. The name of the lot she draws - her husband Renato. At this moment the page Oscar appears and brings the invitation to the masquerade ball.

Second picture: Count Riccardo's study

Count Riccardo writes a decree on Renato's return to England. He should soon leave North America together with Amelia. He no longer wants to endanger his best friend's marriage and reputation. An anonymous letter warns Riccardo of an assassination attempt on the ball. But this is not a coward and takes part in the ball.

Third image: Grand Ballroom

The masquerade ball is in full swing. The conspirators - Renato among them - mingle with the masked guests. Renato tries to find out from the page Oscar what mask Riccardo is hiding behind. But Oscar doesn't reveal anything. However, Amelia recognizes Riccardo. Both meet apart and say goodbye to each other. When the two want to part, Renato stabs Count Riccardo down with a stab in the back. The crowd is upset and wants to pounce on the killer. Riccardo, however, protects him and shows him the decree ordering Renato and Amelia to return to England. He swears to his friend that nothing improper has happened between him and Amelia. Riccardo forgives his murderer and dies. Ulrica's prophecy has been fulfilled.

Instrumentation

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Work history

Since 1843 Giuseppe Verdi had the idea of composing an opera about Shakespeare's King Lear . He commissioned the poet Antonio Somma (1809–1864) to write a libretto . When Verdi got a contract for a new work for the Teatro San Carlo in Naples for 1858, he asked Somma to interrupt work on the libretto. Verdi wanted Maria Piccolomini to sing the role of Cordelia, but she was not available. So he devoted himself to another work. His choice fell on Eugène Scribe's work Gustave III, a drama about the life and death of the Swedish king, which in 1833 by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber as Gustave III. ou Le bal masqué (Eng. Gustav or the masked ball ) was set to music. Gustav III of Sweden was considered one of the most colorful personalities in Europe. He was an enlightened monarch, famous as an art lover and notorious for his love of life. Because he wanted to abolish the privileges of the nobility, he attracted enemies. On March 16, 1792, the king was shot by the masked Count Johann Jakob Anckarström at a masked ball in the Stockholm Opera in front of the ball company , and died of blood poisoning just under two weeks later. This incident inspired Verdi to Un ballo in maschera . Many historical details that Scribe had already processed have also been preserved in Somma's libretto. For example, as in Verdi's opera, the historical Gustav was actually warned of the assassination by an anonymous letter immediately before attending the masked ball, which the latter carelessly ignored. In addition, not only does the assassin Anckarström (René) appear in the opera, but also his historical co-conspirators, Count Claes Fredrik Horn and Adolf Ludwig Ribbing (alias Tom and Samuel), they even had their real names in the original version. As in Verdi's famous scene in Act 3, these three actually determined Anckarström to be the assassin through the lot. The fortune teller Ulrica is also a historical figure: the then notorious Stockholm occultist Anna Ulrica Arfvidsson had indeed prophesied the king's death and was therefore interrogated by the police after the attack. Historical, however, is above all the precisely drawn character profile of the bisexual king, which is reflected not least in the hermaphroditic role profile of the page Oscar, because the erotic court gossip attributed amorous affairs to the monarch with his pages. Gustav III dubbed him the “theater king” because of his generous patronage for opera and music, as well as his preference for extravagant disguises and masked balls. was therefore ideally suited as the protagonist of an opera libretto, especially since the real Gustav actually fell victim to his murderers in the Stockholm Opera House in 1792: “That Gustav III. finally became a theatrical figure himself, therefore has an underlying logic, the title-giving motif of the theater mask has an ambiguous irony. "

At Verdi's request, Antonio Somma agreed to write this libretto, but with the condition: “I would like to preserve the anonymity of this work or sign it with a pseudonym. That way I can write with more freedom. "

Somma's caution was understandable: in 1848/49 he was involved in an uprising against the Austrian feudal lords in Venice and has been monitored by the police ever since. He didn't want to be associated with a play that had a regicide as its content.

For Naples it was revolutionary material, because in Naples one could still well remember the assassination attempt against the King of Naples four years earlier. On January 13, 1858, Count Felice Orsini had an assassination attempt on Emperor Napoléon III. perpetrated by France. So it was understandable that the censors rejected the opera.

The censors completely rewrote the opera, renaming it Adelia degli Adimari and Verdi had to justify practically every scene before the censorship. As the people and some personalities of Naples stood behind Verdi, there were tumults. There were demonstrations against the government and for a composer's artistic freedom. Finally, the king released Verdi from his contract. He left the city and never wanted to write an opera for Naples again.

The Teatro Apollo in Rome offered Verdi to perform his new opera there, but the papal censorship initially caused problems there too . She agreed on the condition that the plot be moved to Boston and that some people be renamed, especially the nobles. Music and text have been retained. The title of the piece has been renamed Un ballo in maschera.

The opera premiered on February 17, 1859. It became a triumph, not only for Verdi, but also for the Italians' struggle for freedom. The name Verdi was personified in Vittorio Emanuele Re d'Italia.

On September 7, 1860, the hated Bourbon throne overthrew in Naples . One of the first operas to be performed in liberated Naples was Un ballo in maschera.

Today the Stockholm version of the opera is occasionally called Gustav III. listed.

Discography (selection)

CD

DVD

  • Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine with Luciano Pavarotti, Leo Nucci , Aprile Millo, Florence Quivar, Harolyn Blackwell (136 ', Sound: DSS5.1 / DTS5.1; Image: 4: 3; Sub: D, E, F, Sp , Ch, I), Deutsche Grammophon 1991

literature

  • Georg Mondwurf: Giuseppe Verdi and the Aesthetics of Liberation. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-631-38400-9 .
  • Ders .: Giuseppe Verdi's masked ball. In: Program of the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin for “A Masked Ball”, 2008. pp. 19–28.
  • Martin Lade: Gustav III. and Verdi's “masked ball” between poetry and truth. Program booklet Opera Cologne, season 2007/2008.
  • Tino Drenger: Love and Death in Verdi's Musical Drama. Semiotic studies on selected operas. Karl Dieter Wagner, o. O. 1996, ISBN 3-88979-070-4 .
  • Johann Christoph Grünbaum: A masked ball by Giuseppe Verdi. Reich, o. O. 1949.
  • Teresa Klier, Wolfgang Osthoff (ed.): The Verdi sound. The orchestral conception in Giuseppe Verdi's operas. Hans Schneider, Tutzing 1998, ISBN 3-7952-0917-X .

libretto

  • Wilhelm Zentner (Ed.) Giuseppe Verdi. A masked ball. German by Johann Christoph Grünbaum (Reclam's Universal Library No. 4236). Reclam, Stuttgart 1949 u.ö., ISBN 978-3-15-004236-6 .
  • Rosemarie König, Kurt Pahlen (Ed.): A masked ball. Text book Italian - German. Operas of the world. 3. Edition. Atlantis, Zurich / Mainz 1997, ISBN 3-254-08023-8 .

Web links

Commons : Un ballo in maschera  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rein A. Zondergeld : Un ballo in maschera. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater. Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , p. 461.
  2. ^ Martin Lade: Tatort Opera. Gustav III and Verdi's “masked ball” between poetry and truth. Program booklet Opera Cologne, season 2007/2008.
  3. ^ Martin Lade: Tatort Opera. Gustav III and Verdi's “masked ball” between poetry and truth. Program booklet Oper Köln, season 2007/2008, p. 29.