The fortune teller Ulrica also predicts an impending death for Riccardo, which he laughs off. Despite his popularity with the people, plots against the governor’s life are afoot, which Renato warns him about. The governor Riccardo is in love with Amelia, the wife of his best friend and trusted advisor Renato. (Though one can imagine the duo hatching their plot at the Union Oyster House.) Changing the conspirators’ names to Tom and Samuel was the only concession to the new setting, and there is nothing in the opera to suggest colonial Massachusetts, much less Boston. Thus Un ballo became, begrudgingly, the only Verdi opera set in America. A change of location to 14th century Florence didn’t pass muster either to get the opera approved, the frustrated composer finally moved the locale to Boston where the sovereign became governor of Massachusetts. Originally called Gustavo III and set in late 18th-century Sweden, the plot of a love triangle in which a reigning king is assassinated onstage was deemed unacceptable due to contemporary political concerns.

Premiered in 1859, Un ballo in maschera caused the composer no end of battles with the censors.

Un ballo will be repeated Saturday and Tuesday. This is the fifth and final Verdi concert opera of the Italian conductor’s tenure as CSO music director. Riccardo Muti is closing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s season with Un ballo in maschera, which opened Thursday night at Symphony Center. One wonders what Giuseppe Verdi would have thought of a performance of his opera A Masked Ball in which the entire audience is wearing masks. Francesco Meli sang the role of Riccardo in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, with Riccardo Muti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Thursday night.

Verdi opera fifth century