Edited by Ilaria Narici and Alberto Zedda (2000)
NR 138358
Un ballo in maschera, like other Verdi titles, encountered numerous difficulties during its gestation due to the problems raised by censorship. The difficulties that arose and the demands made by the censors were such that Verdi went so far as to break the contract with the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the opera’s original recipient, to schedule a performance in Rome in the 1859 carnival.
The available traditional editions reflect the final stage of the score, the result of patient mediations between the Neapolitan censorship and that of papal Rome.
The new critical edition, thanks to the availability of previously unpublished or hitherto unconsidered musical material (the sketch of the opera in Verdi’s own hand preserved by his heirs in the Archives of Sant’Agata, the orchestra parts printed by Ricordi for the first performance, the first printed edition of the vocal score) and the in-depth study of hitherto neglected literary sources (manuscript librettos, stage layout for the first performance) makes it possible to reconstruct the opera in its original form, providing a detailed reconstruction of the text for the parts modified by the censor and giving an account of all the original versions that can be reconstructed.
In addition, from the point of view of staging, the comparison between the autograph score, the first libretto and the Disposizione scenica drafted by Ricordi for the performance at the Teatro Apollo in Rome in February 1859, makes it possible to resolve some of the directorial problems posed by the lesson in the current editions.
The critical edition allows a choice between the original text provided by Somma and often changed by Verdi himself, and the censored and standardised text from the first printed editions. Both are reproduced by the critical edition, which integrates the missing passages and offers the interpreter a choice.
The errors and inconsistencies present, in large numbers, in the sources are amended and the musical text is brought back to the original version, which often differs from that of the current score, especially in the vocal parts.
The critical edition restores the original agogic and dynamic indications, which were almost always modified or lost in later editions; as well as for the original captions, often when referring to particular vocal or instrumental practices, which are much more numerous and significant than in the traditional editions.
What emerges in general is a care in the orchestration, a refinement in the calibration of the individual instrumental weights within the orchestra, quite different from the sanguine and ‘cabalectic’ Verdi to which decades of textual corruptions and performance practice have accustomed us.