Blu Ray Teatro Real production of Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera"

It has been awhile since delving into Bluray operas with all sorts of distractions such as feeding CDs into the Meridian Sooloos system etc etc. Anyway friends came over last night and we looked at this opera.

Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" is one of his lesser known operas and does not contain often performed arias like those in "La Traviata" etc. And, in common with most operas the story line is utterly improbable, even up to the point of being nearly as ridiculous as that in "Il Travatore". That said, it is a tribute to Verdi's mastery of drama and music (and the artists in this production) that this contrived story ultimately becomes utterly engrossing. Act 1 is nice enough, Act 2 becomes more dramatic and Act 3 is a showstopper.

The audio quality via PCM 5.1 is first rate, complementing the excellent playing and singing of the Madrid Chorus & Orchestra conducted by Jesus Lopez Cobos. The two lead singers, Marcelo Alvarez and Violeta Urmana were unknown to us but their singing was glorious and backed up by other impressive artists. Elena Zarmba capably sung the role of Ulrico, the fortuneteller, but although her voice was suited to the role in timbre etc, she lacked power in that voice to be as convincing as possible so was a minor disappointment.

The settings were traditional and appropriate but the occasional reference to America in the libretto seemed totally out of place. The historical reason for that is originally Verdi encountered public outrage when his storyline centred around the real life assassination of Sweden's King Gustav III. The opera ran into such heavy censorial opposition that Verdi ended up suing the original theatre for whom the piece was originally written. What the libretto illustrated was just not politically correct involving as it did, regicide as subject matter. The legal suit was never pursued to the end and the compromise was to reset the locale to Boston and demote the King to that of Count.

Bottom line is that this Bluray production is a very worthwhile addition to the library. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would expect all Verdi opera lovers to do likewise.

John