A Masked Ball is the most popular opera from Verdi’s so-called transitional period. Its popularity is the result of the unique melodies and sparkling arias of all protagonists, with orchestral embellishments and a dramatic charge which rises uninterrupted to the very finale. That this would happen was clear at the world premiere in Rome in 1859, when Verdi triumphantly stepped in front of the curtain thirty times to thank the enraptured audience.

As one of the most beautiful operas by Giuseppe Verdi, this work was composed in the chiaroscuro technique (to use the vocabulary of painting), which is unmistakably evident in the very prelude: the dark theme in the bassos part accompanying the conspirators throughout the opera, is opposed to the solemn harmony of the sovereign and the lyrical love theme. The ambivalent sound of the opera is enhanced by the mixing of Verdi’s melodiousness with the French melodramatic style, particularly evident in the music written for the role of the page Oscar, whose arias have the form of the French couplet. After the very progressively conceived Macbeth or Simon Boccanegra, A Masked Ball represents Verdi’s formal return to the strictly separated arias, duets, ensembles and choirs. The climax of this opera is the central love duet which makes the absolute foothold of the score.