Entertainment

YOU CAN’T MASK FOR MORE

ONE of Verdi’s most wonderful mature operas, “Un Ballo in Maschera,” danced back for its season premiere Monday night at the Metropolitan Opera.

Eloquently conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, the singing was fine. Salvatore Licitra – who’ll probably long be remembered as the man who, at the last minute, subbed for Pavarotti in what was to be the latter’s swan song – played the conflicted hero, King Gustav.

Licitra’s usually gleaming tenor sounded a little tight at first, but he settled in as the opera progressed, offering his best singing in the last act.

As his lover Amelia, Michele Crider – despite the occasional wobble – displayed her creamy tone, which is as effective in the lower soprano range as at the top, a requisite for Amelia.

Best of all was svelte Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. As Amelia’s dishonored husband, Renato Anckarstrom, he gave as splendid a performance of the great accusatory aria “Eri tu” (“It was you”) as I’ve ever heard.

Stephanie Blythe made a powerful, sinister fortuneteller Ulrica. And while young Spanish soprano Ofelia Sala sang with perky confidence in the trousers role of Oscar, Gustav’s page, Sala’s acting – scarcely helped by a ridiculous costume and the production – was unbearably smug. She’ll have better nights.

Then again, so might the opera, for this production limped. As so often in the Met’s older productions – this one by Piero Faggioni dates from 1990 – the strong singing was undercut by the weak staging.

Then again, “Ballo” has sustained many a beating, and the back story tells an unusually tricky tale.

Nowadays, few kings are assassinated at masked balls. Gustav III of Sweden met his end in 1792, shot in the back at just such a masquerade at Stockholm’s Royal Opera House.

Verdi, searching around for a suitable subject 70 years later, settled on poor Gustav, his highly fictionalized love life, and his operatic end. (At the Met, he’s stabbed rather than shot.)

Trouble with the Italian censors, who disapproved of regicide, led Verdi to move the action to a totally mythical Boston, with Gustav now called Riccardo. Nowadays, the scene is often moved back to Sweden and Gustav.

Personally, I prefer the original Bostonian/Italian setting. At least we’re not then saddled with a baritone bearing the unlikely name of Renato Anckarstrom.

UN BALLO IN MASCHERAMetropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center; (212) 362-6000. Performances through April 23.