Un Ballo in Maschera

Composed in the middle of Giuseppe Verdi’s prolific career, Un Ballo in Maschera is replete with the kind of passionate vocal outpourings that make his earlier works so compelling but also shows signs of the composer’s musical evolution—which would reach its fruition in the later masterpieces Otello and Falstaff. In this performance from the 2023–24 season, tenor Charles Castronovo stars as Gustavo III, a conflicted Swedish king harboring an illicit love for his best friend’s wife. Today’s reigning Verdi baritone, Quinn Kelsey appears opposite him as Count Anckarström, with soprano Angela Meade as Amelia, the woman caught between them. Maestro Carlo Rizzi is on the podium to lead a fiery performance, which also features mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova as the fortuneteller Ulrica and soprano Liv Redpath as the pageboy Oscar.