Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera

 (2008)

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray delivers great video and superb audio in this enjoyable Blu-ray release
No synopsis for Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera.

For more about Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera and the Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray release, see the Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray Review

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray Review

One of Verdi's lesser known operas receives a sumptuous performance, but it never really amounts to much.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 10, 2010

Quick: name a Verdi opera which takes place in America. You might be hard pressed to come up with a fast answer, unless you're a true Verdi aficionado and know the history behind one of his lesser known and less regularly performed works, Un ballo in maschera. At least ostensibly based on the real life assassination of Sweden's King Gustav III, Un ballo ran into such stiff censorial opposition that Verdi actually ended up suing the original theater for whom the piece was being written. In those days of enforced political correctness, people didn't just go around creating works of art with regicide as the subject matter. Only after the initial lawsuit petered out and Verdi interested a second house in his upcoming piece were fears allayed by moving the setting of the killing to the then exotic and far-off locale of (wait for it) Boston, Massachusetts. Downgrading the King to Colonial Governor also somehow helped to make Un ballo's plot of starcrossed love leading to assassination more palatable, something that may put the fear of God into at least a couple of current scandal plagued state chief executives. Despite coming rather late in Verdi's career, Un ballo has never attained the status of the master's most highly regarded operas, and it becomes rather easy to see why in this handsomely produced and well sung Madrid production: there's simply not much to the piece, despite Verdi's omnipresent overpowering melodies elucidating equally overpowering emotion.

The "court" of Boston awaits Governor Riccardo.

Un ballo has a rather traditional ménage-a-trois setup, in this case featuring Boston's Governor Riccardo (Marcelo Álvarez), who is hopelessly in love with Amelia (Violeta Urmana), who of course just happens to be wed to Riccardo's best friend Renato (Marco Vratogna). From that overly trite foundation Verdi constructs his typically gargantuan edifice, but unlike any of the masterpieces which preceded it, or even the perhaps more analogous Shakespearian operas which were soon to follow it, Un ballo often just lies there like a wallflower never asked to dance. This piece has earned the soubriquet "the most operatic of operas," something that portends both the positive and negative connotations some may conjure in their own minds with that phrase. On the plus side, Un ballo's heaving emotions offer some exquisitely beautiful arias, chief among them the long and langorous Act II duet between Riccardo and Amelia, wherein Verdi is able to craftily hew various emotional changes and psychological underpinnings out of his typically soaring melodies.

On the minus side, we're greeted by three characters who by and large remain stereotypical ciphers throughout the three acts of the piece. There's simply nothing very remarkable about any of these three which can hook an audience. We don't have the outright tragic element of La Traviata, for instance, despite Un ballo's sad and actually sort of unseemly subject matter. On the other hand, the comic elements which Verdi has injected into Un ballo, while certainly effective in their own way, seem rather incongruous with an opera which attempts to mine the familiar worlds of uncontrollable passion, jealousy, rage and, ultimately, forgiveness.

If you can get past these trite and true (sorry, couldn't resist) elements, there is quite a bit to enjoy about this particular production, recorded over two nights in September 2008 at Madrid's Teatro Real. Chief among the pleasures is the florid and fluid tenor of Álvarez, which glides over Verdi's often challenging vocal lines with ease. Urmana makes for a very appealing love interest, and her duets with Álvarez are often breathtaking. The stolid baritone of Vratogna gives a bit of gravitas to the proceedings, helping to offset Verdi's almost compulsive rush toward the stratospheric end of the vocal spectrum. Elena Zaremba is also quite a bit of sinister fun as the fortune teller Ulrica, whose prophecies hint at the doom awaiting the lovers. (Of course, no one listens to her—this is opera, after all). It should be noted for you trivia fans that none other than Marian Anderson became the first African American to perform at New York's Metropolitan Opera in the role of Ulrica.

This is also often a sumptuous, if resolutely conservative, production, full of huge sets which convey both the pomp of the Governor's surroundings as well as the decay of the gallows which lie just outside. In a rather odd callback to none other than Harold Prince's original staging of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret, the final ballroom scene plays out underneath a distorted mirror, which reflects the goings-on from a literally twisted perspective right back at the audience. In Prince's case with the famous musical about the perversities of pre-war Berlin, it was easy to understand the subtext that everyone is guilty of something "not quite kosher," as it were, whether that be in sexual proclivities or behavior of other sorts. What exactly stage director Mario Martone is going for here is a little bit more amorphous, but it does lend a rather nifty visual streak to the final scene. (The whole masked ball syndrome here is often unintentionally funny for those of who wonder why starcrossed lovers can't seem to recognize each other despite only a small mask covering their eyes, along the lines of Superman's invincible disguise as Clark Kent, where he simply dons a pair of glasses along with a traditional suit).

Unfortunately taken as a whole, though, Un ballo seems to be redolent of Verdi almost on auto pilot. The flight is assured, error free and often enjoyable, but there's a notable lack of magic this time around. It's an interesting voyage to be sure, but one that I doubt will linger in anyone's memory or imagination for very long.

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray, Video Quality

 

Un ballo in maschera arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Opus Arte, with a nicely sharp and beautifully saturated AVC encoded 1080i image in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. As you can see from many of the screen captures included with this review, this is a production bathed in glorious hues of deep blue, and the Blu-ray offers the many shades of blue in gorgeous array. Detail is very sharp throughout the opera, with good contrast and black levels. A lot of the opera plays out on darkened or near-black stages, and gradations between the dark military costumes and the inky backgrounds are always very clear and easy to delineate. Flesh tones are spot on and the occasional uses of red are eye poppingly saturated. This is a solid image with no artifacting that I noticed.

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray, Audio Quality

 

This is one of Verdi's more peculiar scores, and one which the LPCM 5.1 mix here augments masterfully. The opera starts with quiet pizzicati in the strings which almost immediately erupts into tutti blasts that seem to jolt the listener into paying attention. This sort of almost manic-depressive element recurs again and again throughout Un ballo, and the LPCM track here supports this really huge dynamic range incredibly well. I did have some occasional issues with the balance between the singers and the orchestra, notably the Page (Alessandra Marianelli) and to a lesser extent Zaremba's Ulrica, who just occasionally both get swallowed up by the huge swells in the orchestra. I actually think this is a result of some stage micing issues, as in one scene early in Act I, when Marianelli is down left she's quite hard to hear, but as soon as she moves upstage her voice rings out clear as a bell. Overall, though, this is an excellent recording, with no distortion or dropouts, and a full blooded orchestra well conducted by the always excellent Jesus Lopes Cobos.

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray, Special Features and Extras

 

The typical illustrated synopsis and cast gallery augment the Blu-ray, while the insert booklet hsa the expected essay, which perhaps tries to defend Un ballo's "fusion" of tragedy and opera comique a bit too stridently.

Verdi: Un Ballo in Maschera Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation

 

If you've never seen Un ballo before, I doubt you could ask for a more sumptuous, well sung performance than this one. But if you have seen Un ballo before, chances are you're not going to put this at the top of your "must see" list. That's no fault of this particular production, just the result of Verdi not at the very top of his game.

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