Ballo in maschera
San Francisco, November 1977
By Stephanie von Buchau, Opera News, January 1978
The season's last production, Un Ballo in Maschera (November 12), lacked visceral excitement but compensated with a lyrical, musical force due mainly to the finesse and nobility of José Carreras (Riccardo) and the sensibility of Kurt Herbert Adler in the pit. Carreras' maturity, his wit and stylish elegance were allied to enough power and refulgence to make him nearly ideal. If Adler's conducting lacked propulsion, it was sympathetic to Verdi's orchestral innovations and moving in finale.
Katia Ricciarelli and Yuri Mazurok (local debut) received ovations for their distant, coldly uninvolved performances. She is beautiful and has a lustrous soprano. He is forcefully masculine and possesses a keen-edged baritone of some amplitude. But neither had the spark that makes the music glow; her phrasing was awkward, his volume never dropped below mezzo-forte. Kathleen Battle sang brilliantly as Oscar but was fussy in stage action. Patricia Payne made a fierce Ulrica, rather like Norma wandered in from another century; her singing was richly exciting.
The grand new "Swedish" production by John Conklin (designs) and Sonja Frisell (direction) is muddy in color, rather like an old master that hasn't had the varnish removed, and stupefyingly inept--Riccardo and Amelia sang the love duet to opposite sides of the stage.
This page was last updated on: May 17, 2005
