In review: from around the world: Naples.(International)(Un Ballo in Maschera)(Opera Review)

There is a degree of poetic (or theatrical) justice in the fact that a Verdi opera whose performance at the Teatro di San Carlo was banned by the censors in 1858 finally ended up being staged there (before anywhere else in Italy) 146 years later. The opera in question--seen on January 18--was Philip Gossett and Ilaria Narici's "hypothetical reconstruction" (first heard in Gothenburg in 2002) of the score that was later revised to become Un Ballo in Maschera. Before the work was banned, Verdi already had had to change its title (to Una Vendetta in Domino) and setting (Stettin instead of Stockholm), but logically enough the original title, Gustavo III, has been adopted for the reconstruction. Rather less logically, director Ruggero Cappuccio chose to set this production in and around Naples during the reign (1830-59) of Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies (the final ball actually tales place at the San Carlo), and the action he devised was olden pretentious and unorganic. The sets by Nicola Rubertelli, inspired by period paintings, were stunningly atmospheric, though they tended to show up the relative lack of brilliance in Verdi's original scoring.

Musically the performance was not without interest, and the many differences in the score and libretto, though hardly revelatory in terms of musical dramaturgy, inevitably keep the listener even more alert than usual to what the characters are saying and how they are saying it. Renato Palumbo's purposeful, idiomatic conducting lent persuasive shape even to those arias (such as "Morro, ...