West Bay Opera Chorus
Background Notes: Un ballo in maschera
in progress
The mask and hat worn by King Gustav III at a ball at the Stockholm Opera House the night of March 16, 1792.
West Bay Opera Chorus
It was during this depressing decade that Giuseppe Verdi produced those brilliant and undying successes of his "middle period," from Rigoletto in 1851 through Un ballo in maschera in 1859. It is no coincidence that these operas involved his most famous battles with the censorship. On the one hand, before 1850 Verdi was insufficiently well-established and wealthy to be able to fight the authorities effectively; he had to have his operas performed just to survive. On the other hand, the power of Verdi's operas to incite anti-government fervor, and their successful exploitation by the nationalist cause had been amply demonstrated in the string of "Risorgimento" operas of the 1840's, from Nabucco through Ernani, Attila, and Macbeth, among others, justifying the censors' concerns.
The story of the evolution of the libretto of Un ballo in maschera is well-known, and can be briefly summarized. Verdi had contracted in early 1857 with the Teatro San Carlo in Naples to produce a new opera for the coming season. He intended the opera to be an adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear, a project on which he had been working with the Venetian playwright Antonio Somma for nearly four years. As the year went on, though, Verdi was afflicted by doubts, ostensibly about the potential singers, but presumably also about his own ability to do justice to the revered work. Casting about for a substitute that could be prepared on short notice, he decided, for the only time in his career, on an adaptation of an existing and previously-set opera libretto. Eugène Scribe's Gustave III, ou le bal masqué was a 5-act work from the heyday of French grand opera. It was originally offered to Rossini, along with La juive, but he turned both Scribe libretti down in favor of Guillaume Tell. (It is amusing to speculate what might have happened had Rossini chosen it for his magnum opus in the grand opera style. Verdi would have been unlikely to have considered it -- by the time Verdi challenged Otello, Rossini's setting was forgotten, along with all of his other opere serie. On the other hand, Verdi loved Schiller almost as much as Shakespeare, and William Tell is by far the most famous of Schiller's drama that Verdi never approached!) Gustave III might well have served Meyerbeer or Halévy. It was, however, set by Daniel Auber, a composer generally better suited to the lighter opéra-comique style, and he did not succeed in recreating the sensation that he had achieved with Masaniello (La muette de Portici). The opera was fairly successful at its premiere in 1833, but probably more on account of its arresting and artfully constructed story (and the opportunities it afforded for historical pageantry and ballet) than Auber's music; Verdi surely appreciated this. The 25-year old libretto had already been adapted by others among Verdi's contemporaries, notably by Saverio Mercadante and Salvadore Cammarano for the moderately successful Il reggente of 1843, still being performed in the 1850s.
Gustave III is largely fiction; but the drama revolves around a very real historical event, the assassination of Sweden's King Gustavus III at a masked ball in the Stockholm Opera House in March 1792, only forty years before. Regicide was an operatic subject virtually guaranteed to alarm the authorities under any circumstances; when it involved a real and recent European head of state who could fairly claim to have been beloved by his subjects, assassins who invoked the cause of liberty and constitutional freedoms, and who were forgiven in the end, it was obviously going to present somewhat of a problem. And Verdi was proposing this for Naples, capital of the most paranoid and repressive state of Italy! In response to the censor's concerns, the opera was retitled Una vendetta in domino (A Masked Revenge), the setting moved back 100 years and transferred to Stettino (Stettin / Szczecin) in Pomerania (which was a province of Sweden at the time anyway), the historic king changed to a fictitious duke of the same name who felt remorse over his affair, the conspirators given personal rather than political reasons for their antipathy toward him, and the murder weapon changed from a gun to a dagger. Antonio Somma, the poet, was to be credited only under the anagram Tommaso Anoni. (This was a common subterfuge to avoid embarrassment; Boïto was to do likewise for the libretto of La gioconda some years later).
Unfortunately, the very day that Verdi arrived in Naples to begin rehearsals, on Jan. 14, 1858, Felice Orsini, an Italian nationalist at the head of a small conspiracy, threw three bombs at the coach of Napoleon III as the emperor was on his way to the theater in Paris. The unsuccessful attempt on his life threw the Italian governments into a state of acute terror; not unjustified, as it was to very soon have the intended effect of frightening Napoleon into supporting the cause of Italian nationalism. After putting off Verdi for some weeks, and then presenting demands for preposterous changes to the libretto, the theater management eventually presented him with a fait accompli, a new libretto by their own hack, in which the action was transferred to 14th-century Florence amidst the safely medieval struggles of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. It was to be called Adelia degli Adimari. Verdi lost his patience and temper, withdrew the opera, the Teatro San Carlo sued him for breach of contract, and he filed a countersuit. Both actions were eventually settled out of court on his promising to supply a new opera for the fall season, which turned out to be just a revival of Simon Boccanegra, but a successful and profitable one.
Meanwhile, Verdi tried to shop his new opera elsewhere. Oddly, it would seem, he turned first to Rome. Roman censorship was every bit as rigid as the Neapolitan, being under direct ecclesiastical authority and an ultra-conservative pope. Verdi had a very close friend in the Roman impresario Vincenzo Jacovacci, though, at whose theater he had scored the greatest success of his career with Il trovatore. Furthermore, he had learned that a prose drama on the subject of Gustav III was being performed at the time in Rome. It is clear that he was partly motivated by the hope of shaming the Neapolitans by having an opera refused by them accepted by the cautious (and nearby) Papacy. It has even been argued that he was so intent on thus thumbing his nose at Naples that he agreed to further changes in the libretto that he might not have had to make for a more cosmopolitan and tolerant theater in the northern states. It turned out, though, that the Roman censors were mostly content simply to have the action removed entirely from Europe. (Censorship then as now was thoroughly unimaginative, being focused only on specific words, names, activities, and subjects. It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that a revolutionary or criminal could be equally inspired by the stage portrayal of the murder of a fictitious earl in Boston as a historic king in Stockholm to attack an Italian king, duke, pope or police chief.) Verdi was given the choice of transferring the action to America or the Caucasus, and chose the former. So King Gustavo, who had already become Duke of Pomerania, was now simply changed to Riccardo Duke of Surrey, the governor of colonial Boston (and eventually Earl of Warwick, because even a duke was too august and sacred a personage to live a profligate life, have adulterous affairs, and be assassinated). The title was changed to Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball), practically the subtitle of Scribe's original libretto, but something that sounded more frivolous and less sinister than a vendetta. And Somma insisted that his name be withheld from the libretto entirely, which it was, then and through many subsequent editions.
The decision to place the action in 17th-century Boston of all places was not a happy one, at least from the perspective of American audiences with some knowledge of colonial history. Verdi, Somma, Jacovacci, and the censors presumably felt that one English colony was pretty much like another, and that all would have reflected the zeitgeist of the mother country. Restoration England, with its popular, fun-loving, and notoriously wenching monarch Charles II fitted the spirit of the libretto reasonably well. Certainly if the action had been set in colonial Williamsburg or Charleston it would have been considerably more believable. (Of course there are no specific references to Boston in the text, so transferring the action to a different colony does no visible damage to the story.) The selection of Boston may even have stemmed from a previous foolish decision of the Roman censors. Earlier in the decade Verdi had written another great and popular opera involving a historical, hedonistic king who dallied with the wives of his friends and supporters, and was nearly murdered as a result. Austrian censorship in Venice at that time had compelled him to change King Francis II of France to a fictitious Duke of Mantua. This was not sufficient to satisfy the more cautious Roman censorship, however. When Rigoletto was performed in Rome and in Bologna, and presumably elsewhere in the Papal States, it was under the title Viscardello. Viscardello was a hunchback in the service of the Duke of Nottingham, and the action was set in Boston - in the 16th century! Since Boston, Massachusetts was not founded until 1630, the Boston in question can only have been the small coastal town in Lincolnshire, close enough to the city and shire of Nottingham that if such a fictitious duchy had ever existed Boston might plausibly have been part of it. Perhaps Jacovacci's Teatro Apollo was able to get a good deal on "Bostonian" sets and costumes from the rival Teatro Argentina!
Opinion has gone back and forth on how best to present Un ballo in maschera in a way faithful to the creators' intentions (if that is indeed the aim). Throughout Verdi's lifetime and well into the 20th century the opera was almost always performed exactly as written. There were early attempts in England and France to move the action to different times and places (not Stockholm 1792), but these seem to have been guided more by expediency than by any thoughts of authenticity or probability. In the middle of the 20th century it became fashionable to restore the setting described by Scribe and originally envisioned by Verdi and Somma. Unfortunately the text that Verdi set was not the original, so reversion to a presumed original (which never existed) necessitates some changes of sung text or even music. Although Scribe's sort of historical detail was largely jettisoned from the libretto in the first place, little touches of locale appear from the very beginning of the opera (when the attendants sing A te scudo su questa dimora / Sta d'un vergine mondo l'amor) to the very end, when Riccardo bids Addio, diletta America. These often make little or no sense in the context of Gustav III, even if the name America is changed to Svezia or patria to avoid too blatant an incongruity. Faithfulness to Verdi's ideas, at least, thus cannot be fully realized. (For more on these problems, see the section on choral text choices below.) In recent decades the pendulum has swung back, the consensus view being that what evidently satisfied Verdi in the end should be respected as his final word. Indeed, those who would `restore' Verdi by tinkering with the libretto are in a sense guilty of the very attitude against which Verdi fulminated in the censors of his day, that one can fit to his music any text which happens to please. It should also be borne in mind that apart from the names and titles of some of the characters, the shooting at a masked ball in the opera house, the visit to a fortune-teller, the anonymous warning letter, and a faintly suggested homoerotic interest, none of the events of Gustave III have any historic basis. What a "Gustavo III" restoration really attempts is thus not history itself, but a revival of a Scribe historical grand opera, itself an artifice of the first order. But the best way to do that would presumably be to resuscitate Auber's own opera, not to tinker with Verdi's.
One might wonder what led Verdi to select Scribe's opera as the starting point for his own in the first place. Certainly not its historical realism, which was completely superficial. Verdi and Somma showed no interest in preserving, let alone improving upon, the little touches of historical detail that characterized the original. Verdi had spent the whole of the year 1854 in Paris collaborating with Eugène Scribe on another historical grand opera in the same tradition, Les vêpres siciliennes, and he certainly appreciated the extent to which history was subordinated to melodramatic plot. At that time he must undoubtedly have become very familiar with Scribe's past successes in the genre, including Gustave III. During that year in Paris, an event occurred in Verdi's home state that might well have brought this particular story vividly to mind.
For almost his whole life Verdi had been a subject of the Duchy of Parma. This little state (barely the size of Tuolumne County) on the right bank of the Po, between Lombardy and Liguria, had been for over a century somewhat of a political football in the incessant struggles between the Hapsburgs and the Bourbons for power in the Italian peninsula. Indeed, it had changed hands no less than three times during the single decade of the 1740's alone. It was typical that in the political reorganization of Italy by the Congress of Vienna after Waterloo, Parma had been awarded to the former Empress of France, Maria Luisa, wife of Napoleon and sister of the Hapsburg emperor, with the stipulation that upon her death the duchy would revert to the Bourbon house that had ruled it before the wars. In the mean time, the Bourbon ducal family had to content itself with the newly-created and even smaller Duchy of Lucca, temporarily carved out of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and destined to be restored to that Hapsburg domain when the Bourbon dukes would resume their rule of Parma. Maria Luisa was a wise, popular and fairly benevolent ruler of her little duchy, maintaining a reasonably efficient administration and keeping the political and dynastic ambitions of her successive husbands and others in check.
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Carlo III, Duke of Parma. 1822-1854. A risorgimento regicide. |
The character of Carlo III may have been to some extent overly vilified
by the Italian nationalists; but there seems to be general agreement
that in addition to sharing his father's ignorance and incapacity, the
new Duke of Parma could fairly be labeled a monster of vice and cruelty.
To the tense situation
created by continuing nationalist ferment and Austrian military occupation
was added both the separatist leanings of Piacenza, the other major city
of the duchy, and Bourbon legitimist intrigues engendered by the duke's
increasing reliance on Hapsburg power. These last centered around the
duchess, Maria Luisa (no relation to the previous one), who also had
personal reasons for dissaffection from the duke.
to be continued...
The scene changes to the fortune-teller's shanty. On the left there is a hearth, with a fire burning, and the magic cauldron is steaming over a tripod. On the same side there is the entrance to a dark recess. On the right side is a staircase that winds up and disappears under the roof, and at the end of it in the front is a little secret door. In the back is the main entrance door, with a large window beside it. In the middle is a rough table, and hanging from the ceiling and the walls are appropriate instruments and furnishings. In the back is a crowd of women and children. Ulrica is near the table, and a little to the side a boy and a girl who are having their fortunes told. The crowd calls for silence so as not to disturb her incantation: the demon is about to speak to her. Ulrica sings an incantation full of the stock imagery of stage wizardry, lightning, salamanders, moans from the grave, etc. Riccardo appears, sufficiently well disguised in his fisherman's outfit that the crowd of commoners fails to recognize him; they rudely tell him to get back. They notice how dark it is getting. Ulrica goes into her trance, evidently communicating with some being, and the crowd hails her as a sorceress. Silvano, a sailor, now appears and asks Ulrica for his fortune. She tells him that he will receive money and a promotion. Riccardo, listening and seeking to play a joke, writes out a note of commission and surreptitiously hands it with a purse of money to Silvano. Silvano is delighted, and the crowd suitably impressed, hailing their immortal sibyl who spreads riches and happiness to all. They hear a knock at the door. It is Amelia's servant, seeking a secret interview with Ulrica for his mistress. The crowd is dismissed, leaving her who seeks out the truth, but Riccardo hides himself. Amelia confesses the troubles of her love life to Ulrica. Ulrica advises her to pick a plant from the execution ground at midnight and drink a potion of it. Amelia prepares to do so that very night; Riccardo secretly plans to be there as well. Voices are heard from outside the door, calling on this daughter of Avernus to open the gates and show herself. Hustling Amelia out through the secret door, Ulrica opens the main door for Samuel and Tom and their followers, Oscar, and the gentlemen and officials, all disguised in bizarre costumes. Riccardo joins them. They call on the prophetess to mount the tripod and sing what is to come. Riccardo comes forward and asks her to tell him of his fate. He boldly says that neither storm nor death nor love can keep him from the sea; and (speaking for all) that no terror can enter their souls. Ulrica chastises him for his audacity. Oscar offers to be the first to have his fortune told, but Riccardo insists. Examining his palm, Ulrica says it is that of a great man, who has lived under the sign of Mars, but she then breaks off, refusing to continue. When Riccardo insists, along with everyone present, she announces that he will die soon. If it be on the field of honor, he is glad, he says, but she replies that it will be by the hand of a friend. All are horror-stricken. In a concerted ensemble, Ricccardo treats it all as a joke, Samuel and Tom are fearful of Ulrica's knowledge, she perceives their guilty reactions, and everyone else's spirits shudder in thinking of such a fate, that he will fall assassinated. Riccardo demands to know who the killer will be, and Ulrica replies that it will be the first person to shake his hand this day. Riccardo cheerfully offers his hand to everyone, but none dare take it. Just then Renato appears at the door; Riccardo runs up to him and takes his hand. All breathe a sigh of relief that it is he. They accuse the oracle of lying; as Riccardo explains that the hand he shakes is that of his most faithful friend. Ulrica now recognizes him as the earl. He derides her for having able neither to recognize him nor to know that she herself had been banished that day, a sentence which he now (presumably) revokes, tossing her a purse. Ulrica replies that he is magnanimous, but that there is a traitor among those present, perhaps more than one. Samuel and Tom again express their fright, but Riccardo will hear no more. Voices are now heard from outside hailing Riccardo. Silvano has collected his friends to pay homage to their friend and father, bowing down at his feet and hymning their allegiance. O son of England, beloved of this land, they sing, reign happily, may glory and health smile upon you. Meanwhile Samuel, Tom and their followers deplore the fact that their path is blocked by this servile race ignorantly dancing round its idol. Riccardo and Oscar express their pleasure, Renato his worries.
Act II. A lonely field in the vicinity of Boston at the foot of a steep hill. On the left at the bottom, two white pillars; the softly veiled moon illuminates several parts of the scene. It is midnight. Amelia has come for her prescription. Riccardo joins her; they declare their love. Renato comes to warn Riccardo of an ambush; Amelia veils herself. Exchanging cloaks with Renato, Riccardo flees, Renato promising to conduct the veiled lady to the city without discovering her identity. The conspirators arrive, ready to hurl themselves upon Riccardo, whose last hour has struck; the dawn will greet his cadaver. When Renato confronts them they realize to their dismay that it is not the earl, only his faithful friend. Curious to look on the visage of this Isis with whom he has evidently been dallying, several approach with burning torches. Renato threatens them, his hand on his sword; they call on him to put it down, but when Tom goes to tear off Amelia's veil, Renato draws his sword. Amelia, beside herself, throws herself between the men, letting fall her veil. All are amazed to discover her to be his wife, not least Renato. Mockingly, the conspirators note how Renato is carrying on a moonlight affair with his own wife, what a commotion there will be over such a strange situation, and what gossip there will be in the city. Amelia is embarrassed, Renato shamed and enraged; to the conspirators, the tragedy is turning to comedy. Renato approaches Samuel and Tom and invites them to come to his house the next morning; they agree. Samuel, Tom, and their followers leave by different roads, expecting the next morning to bring great things. Left alone, Renato tremblingly reminds Amelia of his promise to conduct her to the city gates; his voice penetrates to her heart like the sound of death.
Act III. Chez Renato, the next morning. Renato plans to kill Amelia, but decides instead to kill Riccardo. He joins the conspiracy, and is selected to be the assassin. Oscar invites everyone to a masked ball that night.
The governor's study, that evening. Riccardo prepares to send Renato and Amelia back to England. He will stay away from the ball, even now under way, for fear of seeing Amelia and losing his resolve. Oscar brings him an anonymous letter from a disguised lady, warning that there will be an attempt on his life at the ball. Fearing to appear cowardly, Riccardo determines to attend the ball after all.
A vast and richly appointed ballroom, splendidly illuminated and prepared for celebration. Merry music is being played as a prelude to the dances, and already at the rise of the curtain a multitude of guests fill the scene. The larger number are masked, some in domino, others in party dress and without masks. Among the dancing couples are some young Creoles. Pursuit and evasion. All the servants are black, and everything breathes magnificence and hilarity. The guests fervently love and dance in this happy hall, for life is only an alluring dream. In this night of lovely moments, of heartbeats and songs, why should they not close their wings on the wave of pleasure, they wonder. Between choruses, Samuel, Tom, and Renato bemoan the fact that the governor will evidently not be at the ball; Oscar pesters Renato, Renato unmasks him, learns that the earl is indeed at the ball. Groups of maskers and dancing couples come forward and temporarily separate Renato from Oscar. Renato extracts from Oscar the secret of the earl's disguise: a black cape with a red ribbon on his breast. Dancers come arm in arm to the proscenium. Riccardo appears, and Amelia, who has no trouble recognizing him, warns in a feigned voice of his impending death. Riccardo wonders if it was she who wrote the warning letter, and who she is. When she cries that she cannot reveal herself, he recognizes Amelia by her voice. Again they avow their love and bid each other farewell, Riccardo informing her that she and Renato will return to their homeland tomorrow. Riccardo draws away, but after a few steps returns to bid her a final farewell. Renato, interposing himself, stabs Riccardo. All are horrified, crying out that he has been murdered, seeking to know the villain. Oscar points him out, he is unmasked, and everyone is shocked to discover Renato. They call down death and infamy on the traitor, that he may be torn by the avenging steel. Riccardo stays their wrath, assures Renato of Amelia's purity, swearing that he who has loved her has always repected her chastity, and shows Renato the letter that would have sent them away. Amelia and Renato express their remorse, Oscar his sorrow. Riccardo exercises his lordship to grant a general pardon. The guests piously wish that God may keep such a noble and generous heart: a light of His heavenly love on them, the wretched of the earth. Riccardo bids his children, his beloved America, farewell. The principals note that he is dying, which he does. Everyone calls it a night of horror.
Of the two most readily available vocal scores at present, the Ricordi edition is preferable in almost every respect to the Schirmer. The Ricordi edition, plate number 48180, most recently reprinted in 2001, is a direct descendent of the original piano-vocal score arranged by Luigi and Alessi Truzzi, first published in 1860, and reissued in 1914, 1944, and 1959. The Schirmer edition of 1957, plate number 43891, is by an unnamed arranger, and contains an English "version" by Peter Paul Fuchs in addition to the Italian text (the Ricordi is Italian only). It is not quite a translation because the names of a few characters and the sense of a few phrases here and there are changed to reflect the original setting of Scribe's libretto. For example, at the end of Act I the English chorus sings Long live our King and father, in place of O figlio d'Inghilterra. Unless this particular translation is being performed, however, it makes little sense to use it; the Ricordi score is much easier to sing and learn from.
Some of the problems with the Schirmer score are common to all or most of the publisher's offerings, such as the lack of rehearsal numbers. Slurs are used for notes on the same syllable regardless of musical phrasing: for example in the second bar sung by the conspirators, a slur is placed over the two staccato notes at the beginning of the word ripensando because the English text there is va--liant. The fact that the edition is bilingual means that the underlay is crowded, and the Italian text is in a fairly small italic font below the English. Wherever possible the basses and tenors share a single line of underlay between their staves; this occasionally leads to awkward shifts of text line for the basses, for example on page 91, where a separate Italian underlay suddenly ceases for the basses while the English continues, because the translator chose to have the tenors and basses sing different text while in Italian they sing the same! No octave notation is made for the treble clef of the tenor line, so that, for example, it is not clear that the external chorus at #59 (p. 72: Figlia d'averno) is male only. Many of the dynamic and phrase markings in the Ricordi score are omitted in the Schirmer. And the music is generally more crowded and cluttered in the Schirmer edition, as witness the fact that a score with dual-text underlay is condensed to 258 pages, while Ricordi's single-text is allowed 309 pages.
There are numerous minor discrepancies betwen the Schirmer and Ricordi vocal scores, but there is one huge difference that needs to be noted. In the stretta of the Act 1 Introduction (pp. 32-46 in Schirmer), the Schirmer editors have (deliberately?) misinterpeted the three vocal lines in the full score assigned to 1st tenors, 2nd tenors, and basses, as being sung by women (SA in unison), tenors, and basses, respectively! Thus the Schirmer score has women singing the 1st tenor line an octave higher than intended, generally doubling Oscar, in a scene in which no women are supposed to be present, while all the tenors sing what was supposed to be the 2nd tenor line. A generous gesture to the chorus women, perhaps, who otherwise have comparatively little to do in this opera; but it creates technical problems, as the women must be on stage in different costumes when the curtain goes up on the scene immediately following.
Another very significant error in the Schirmer score is that in the Act I finale, the chorus parts of the conspirators doubling Samuel's and Tom's lines (from p. 105 to the end) are omitted. In reality, each of those apparently solo lines is shared with a group of chorus basses. This error was also made in the original Ricordi vocal score; but the full score is clear on the matter, and subsequent editions have corrected it.
The Kalmus edition is simply the Ricordi edition with the text replaced by a typescript underlay allowing incorporation of an additional English translation by Robert H. Cowden. The Italian is above the English, and they are the same size and font. It is a reasonable choice for a dual-language score.
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et tu mourras... assassiné! Frontispiece of Scribe's Gustave III |
Although certainly not sources of the opera, it is worth mentioning a few other works based on the assassination of Gustav III. By far the most important are August Strindberg's play Gustav III (1902), and the novel Drottningens Juwelsmycke (The Queen's Tiara), or Azouras Lazuli Tintomara, by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist. The former, one of a series of at least six historical plays about various Swedish monarchs by the famous playwright, primarily explores the character of Gustav. Although it deals with the conspiracy to assassinate the king, it is set three years earlier, in 1789, about the time of his coup d'état and the beginning of the French Revolution. An assassination planned and attempted in his pleasure palace at Drottningholm in the play is a fantasy. The latter, written in 1834, almost contemporaneously with the Scribe/Auber opera, is a landmark of Swedish literature. It is a curious story, written in a mélange of narrative styles, of an androgynous dancer with a deadly attraction for men and women alike, and some mysterious connections with the royal family. It is set, however, around the time of the assassination, which is described in great and supposedly faithful detail. (The novelist's grandmother was one of those present at the fatal ball.) Interestingly, it too has served as the basis for a recent opera, Lars Johan Werle's Tintomara, produced in London in 1977.
There are only a few historical facts that correspond to incidents of the plot of Gustave III, and even fewer that survived (symbolically) in Un ballo in maschera:
Scribe explicitly stated the epoch of the action as the 15th and 16th
of March, 1792, i.e. the day preceding and the day of the ball
at which Gustav III was shot. The time of day of the first act,
corresponding to the first scene of Un ballo in maschera, is
not explicitly mentioned, but is presumably early morning, as the king
has just arisen. The rendez-vous at Mme. Arvedson's of Act II is
fixed for 2:00 that day (changed to 3:00 in Ballo, perhaps
to keep it monosyllabic in Italian). Act III, corresponding to Act II
of Ballo, takes place after midnight of the 15th/16th; the bell
is heard at the rise of the curtain, whereas in Ballo it does not
sound until the middle of Amelia's aria - evidently Verdi's Amelia
was alittle more prompt. Act IV, in Ankastrom's house,
must be around 7:00 the next morning, as that is the time fixed the
previous night for Warting and Dehorn to meet him there - in Ballo
it is merely sometime in the morning. The time of the masked ball that
evening is not given, even by Oscar when he invites the Anckastroms;
one must assume that such balls were at a fixed time. The historic
ball began at 10:30 PM, but Gustav did not even arrive at the opera
house until after 11, and spent some time in his private box, as in
the opera, before joining the ball.
to be continued...
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| Gustavus III, King of Sweden. 1746-1792. |
O figlio d'Inghilterra,Since the historical Gustav was not a son of England, the apellation is nonsensical in that context. The common solution to the problem is to alter the first line to ``O figlio della patria,'' which is trite but unexceptionable. This has no basis in the original libretto, however. The words of the hymn in Una vendetta in domino were:
Amor di questa terra:
Reggi felice, arridano
Gloria e salute a te.
Gloria a te grande e pio,These words (to which the Bourbon censors objected on the grounds that they invoked the name of God in vain!) could equally well have suited the original Stockholm setting. The tradition of substituting ``della patria'' for ``d'Inghilterra'' in the standard text appears actually to have arisen in fascist Italy during the war, for reasons having nothing to do with a change of locale. It destroys a rhyming scheme that was evidently considered important enough to survive the major alteration in the text. Thus do traditions arise, and people come to believe that they are singing or hearing what Verdi really wanted! The corresponding text in Scribe, by the way, is simply:
Che come volle Iddio,
Le nostre sorti moderi,
Gloria e salute a te!
Vive à jamais Gustave!
Vive notre bon roi!
Vive, vive le roi!
Another interesting case is presented by the chorus of officials and gentlemen sung at the beginning of the opera:
Posa in pace, a' bei sogni ristora,It is often thought sufficient to change the name Riccardo in this text to Gustavo, which preserves the meter, stress, and alternation of front and back vowels and voiced and unvoiced consonants (how thoughtful of Verdi). But this ignores the fact that the `vergine mondo' of the last line refers to a new world, which never included Scandinavia. For the last two lines, Somma had written for Una vendetta in domino:
O Riccardo, il tuo nobile cor.
A te scudo su questa dimora
Sta d'un vergine mondo l'amor.
Questa patria che reggi e t'adorawhich the Bourbon censor would have changed to:
A te guarda con vigile amor.
Questo suol che difendi e t'adorafor Adelia degli Ademari (`patria' was a hot-button word). The original text for the opening stanza in Gustavo III, however, was:
A te guarda con vigile amor.
Posa in pace, a bei sogni ristorawhich is roughly but far from exactly equivalent to Scribe's:
Il paterno tuo palpito o re,
Ogni cor della Svezia t'adora,
Ogni braccio combatte per te!
Repose en paix, honneur de la Suède!
Toi, notre père et notre roi!
Qu'un doux sommeil à tes travaux succède!
Ton peuple heureux veilles sur toi.
WBO Chorus Notes © Richard S. Bogart, 2003
