“Un ballo in maschera” at the Swedish Royal Opera

Passion on the edge of disaster

At the castle an attack on Gustav, the king, is planned. But he ignores the warnings about a conspiracy. The king is possessed by a desperate and destructive passion to Amelia, the wife of his adviser and friend Anckarström. With the threat of death hanging over his head he goes to meet his beloved. In a cold and dark wintery Sweden a masquerade filled with betrayal, political intrigue and a yearning for something completely different takes place.

Verdi’s opera Un ballo in maschera was inspired by a historical event, the murder of Sweden’s king Gustav III. The opera was written in the mid-1800s and because of the political atmosphere in Europe and the Italian theater censorship Verdi and his lyricist Somma was forced to rewrite the libretto and place the opera in Boston. Here the director Tobias Theorell has opted for the Italian version after Scribes’ Gustave III ou Le bal Masqué “.

Music Giuseppe Verdi
Libretto Antonio Somma after a text by Eugène Scribe
Direction Tobias Theorell
Scenography Magdalena Åberg
Lights Ellen Ruge
Coreography Roine Söderlundh
Playwright Katarina Aronsson