Un Bal Masqué at the Bastille, the 41st performance of Belgian stage director Gilbert Deflo’s 2007 production (the sixth in this edition). This performance was the first with American soprano Angela Meade as Amelia (Anna Netrebko sang the first five).
It was the Boston version, not that it mattered, see lead photo of American tenor Matthew Polenzani as Riccardo, aka the assassinated Swedish emperor Gustav III, sitting under an imperial eagle, hardly a Bostonian image. Though he is soon revealed as the victim of a nasty love intrigue in a libretto by Eugène Scribe for French grand opera composer Daniel Auber, made into a libretto for Verdi by one Antonio Somma — the librettist for Verdi’s aborted Re Lear.
Director Deflo, a disciple of famed Italian theater innovator Giorgio Strehler, and Deflo’s designer William Orlandi refined Verdi’s much censored opera (staged regicide was banned in 1857 Italy) into Strehlerian terms — few scenic elements were rendered in powerful imagery, basically in black and white. Until the last scene, the masked ball, that was in brilliant color — though the dancers were abstracted into black and white harlequins, possibly an implication that commedia dell’arte was the theater in Italy during Gustav III’s reign (1773-1792). More likely it was a reference to Strehler’s fixation on Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793).
The staging of this revival, abstracted movement, was by Mr. Deflo himself, now 82 years old. Mr. Deflo was also responsible for the lighting, in accordance with Giorgio Strehler’s staging poetic that imagined the lighting of his atmospheres.
Deflo’s Ulrica was not the libretto’s fortune teller, but a voodoo priestess, dressed in formal red, inhabiting a magnificent temple made solely of three lone dragons spewing vapors, Ulrica aided by a formally dressed male spirit conjured her prophesy. Amelia’s magic herb was to be found in a sinister meadow, a blank stage overseen by two, huge black ravens, though instead witnessed Riccardo’s declaration of love. The assassination plot was hatched under an encapsulated, pure white, imperial statue of Riccardo as governor of Boston (or rather Sweden’s king Gustav).
The Deflo production was pure, passionately emotional theater, hardly history, much less history according to opera. Riccardo from the first moments of the opera allowed his impossible love for Amelia to overwhelm the affairs of state (an impending uprising).
This commedia was carefully paced by Juilliard and Santa Cecilia formed Italian conductor Speranza Scappucci, Verdi’s finely designed musical segments very much in evidence, and rendered very transparent because of the extreme refinement of the Deflo staging. Maestra Scappucci found comfortable tempos that well supported the singers, offering ample space to the evident virtuosity of the cast, doubling down on the intensities when needed, though never abandoning the absolute control that she imposed on her vocal and orchestral forces.
Riccardo was sung by Matthew Polenzani. Like his Don Carlo at the Metropolitan Opera, you might wish for a heftier voice, though his performance held magisterial vocal presence embodied in impeccable Italianate style. Unlike the real, historical Gustav III, Polenzani brought true operatic dignity to Riccardo’s death, vindicating French grand opera librettist Scribe’s transformation of this openly homosexual king into the besotted suitor of Amelia, his best friend and trusted advisor’s wife.
Oscar, Verdi’s only trouser role, was rendered by Catalan coloratura soprano Sara Blanch. In actual historical possibilities, Oscar, if he existed at all, was not only Gustav’s page but also his sex interest. The only overt reference to this in Verdi’s opera is Riccardo’s best friend Renato’s successful threat to reveal Gustav’s reciprocated infatuation with Oscar if Oscar did not reveal to him what Gustav was wearing at the masked ball. Renato was sung by French Verdi baritone Lodovic Tézier. A consummate singer and actor, Mr. Tézier dutifully fulfilled Ulrica’s prophesy that he would be Gustav’s murderer — in both full voice and dramatic effect.
Renato’s wife was sung by Angela Meade. Mme. Meade possesses a voice of purity that is in prime estate, that she used with musical intelligence and high style, making her an ideal late Verdi heroine — is she or isn’t she a fallen woman? This question plagues Verdi’s late operas, Un ballo in maschera, is a preview of Don Carlo and Otello, musically and emotionally.
Ulrica was ably voiced by American mezzo soprano Elizabeth DeShong. Basses Christian Rodrique Moungoungou and Blake Denson as Samuel and Tom made great effect as Renato’s strong voiced assassination collaborators — these were their Boston names, their Stockholm names were Count Ribbing and Count Horn, rebels to the troubled rule of Gustav III.
Michael Milenski
Opéra Bastille, Paris, France, February 11, 2026.
All photos courtesy of the Opéra National de Paris.