After his successful trio of operas – Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata – Giuseppe Verdi chose a historical subject matter for his next opera: the murder of the Swedish King Gustav III at a masked ball in 1792. The love story between Gustavo and Amelia, his best friend’s wife, unfolds against the background of historical events. It ends when the King, at the very moment he renounces his forbidden love, is killed by Amelia’s jealous husband Renato Anckarstroem. Not only due to the circumstances of the murder during the masked ball of the title, but also figures such as the fortune teller Ulrica or the page Oscar make the opera a dazzling piece in which the tragic fundamental conflict is continuously superimposed with absurd humour and a lightness of touch reminiscent of the operetta.

The British director David Pountney, who is well known for his black humour, staged Un ballo in maschera as a fatal play within a play: Gustavo appears to have confused global politics with a gigantic theatrical performance – the control of which is increasingly slipping out of his hands. In our revival, the globally successful tenor Marcelo Álvarez performs the role of the Swedish monarch. We also eagerly await the American soprano Sondra Radvanovsky’s début as Amelia at the Opera House, while Marie-Nicole Lemieux will also be heard as Ulrica in Zurich for the first time. General Music Director Fabio Luisi will be at the rostrum of the Philharmonia.