Product: 8007144579371
Verdi: Gustavo III (Un ballo in Maschera)
Piero Pretti (Gustavo III), Anna Pirozzi (Amelia), Amartuvshin Enkhbat (Anckastrom), Anna Maria Chiuri (Madame Arvidson), Giuliana Gianfaldoni (Oscar)
Filarmonia Arturo Toscanini, Roberto Abbado, Jacopo Spirei On A Project By Graham Vick
The composition of Un ballo in maschera caused Verdi many problems. What began as an opera entitled Gustavo III was subject to censorship by the Neapolitan and Roman authorities, so the libretto, the plot and the title were changed. The theme, however, is still the murder of Riccardo (Gustavo) at the masked ball, wrapped in a musical language that mixes the seriousness of Italian opera with French vivacity. The structure of the opera is carefully symmetrical in the major tercets, and the themes of duty, pleasure, drama, and humor are rendered with masterful clarity.