Beyond the Gothic melodrama: Opera Holland Park revives Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera with Elin Pritchard, Matteo Desole, Dario Solari

Verdi: Un ballo in maschera; Elin Pritchard, Matteo Desole, Dario Solari, Rosalind Plowright, dir: Rodula Gaitanou, City of London Sinfonia, cond: Michael Papadopoulos; Opera Holland Park
Reviewed 25 July 2026

Superbly sung with a real sense of the underlying melodrama of the piece. Gaitanou’s 1940s Hollywood setting really comes together for a highly taut and disturbing final act 

Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera has a famously complex history. Planned for the 1858 Carnival season at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, controversy over the subject matter and the heavy hand of the Neapolitan censors meant that the opera debuted in revised form in 1859 in Rome. The source for the libretto was Eugène Scribe’s libretto for Daniel Auber’s 1833 five act opera, Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué. 

Verdi was familiar with French grand opera, he had had two not entirely successful attempts at writing in the genre – Jérusalem (a major rewrite of I Lombardi) in 1847 and Les vêpres siciliennes (with a libretto by Scribe) in 1855. He had also produced a grand opera version of Il trovatore as Le trouvère in 1856 [see my review of Le trouvère at Wexford Festival]. His fascination with the genre was partly economic and reputational – the Paris Opera paid well and success there was a significant event. But it would only be in 1867 with Don Carlos that he ‘cracked’ the genre, however his experience of French grand opera would cast a long shadow on his later Italian operas, so that Aida for instance has clear links to the genre.

Un ballo in maschera is a fascinating example of the way Verdi and his librettists took elements of the French grand opera genre but projected them onto a tauter dramatic structure. There is still a ball as the climax of the opera, but it has an important dramatic function. Similarly, the scene at Madame Arvidson’s is stripped of frivolity and wrapped into the dramatic structure. And the opera has none of the length problems that beset Don Carlos when presented in Italian opera houses.

Opera Holland Park had a notable success with its 2019 production of Un ballo in maschera [see my review], which was also that year’s Young Artists production [see my review]. Now the production has been revived for the first time with a largely new cast. We caught the opening night on Saturday 25 July 2026. Rodula Gaitanou again directed (with Harriet Taylor as assistant director), and Michael Papadopoulos conducted the City of London Sinfonia. Designs were by takis. Gustavo was sung by Matteo Desole, Amelia by Elin Pritchard, Anckarstrom by Dario Solari, Oscar by Rhian Lois and Madame Arvidson by Rosalind Plowright (who sang in the original production). The conspirators were Jihoon Kim and Duncan Stenhouse.

The production takes its inspiration from 1940s films with the requisite element of melodrama. It is this sense of melodrama that replaces Verdi’s intention for some scenes to be Gothic. The problem is that this introduces a lighter element (audience members behind us found plenty to chuckle at). Madame Arvidson, now a society medium, is no longer quite so transgressive whilst in Act Two, Amelia visits a mental hospital rather than the area round the gallows. The result was effective, but lacked the dark, chaotic edges that Verdi needs. However, in the final act 1940s melodrama and Verdi’s opera came together allowing the performers to shine. No titters here, simply a powerful stretch of operatic drama.

Soprano Elin Pritchard seems to be having something of a Verdi summer. Having sung Elisabetta in Verdi’s Don Carlos for Grange Park Opera, she is now Amelia for Opera Holland Park. She sings with a fine-grained sense of line, yet her voice has the right intensity to carry in the big passages, and to really soar where necessary. Her Act Two duet with Matteo Desole’s Gustavo was glorious, yet she also created a profound sense of melancholy that anchored the character. There was anxiety a plenty, but this Amelia was no passive doormat, standing up to Dario Solari’s Anckastrom in Act Three, and it was a nice touch here to have her breast-feeding her son during her plea to him. 

Matteo Desole was announced as being indisposed, but apart from a sense that he was being careful about volume, there was little indisposition on show. Desole is familiar to OHP audiences for his performances at Alfredo in Verdi’s La traviata, also directed by Rodula Gaitanou (in 2018, 2021 and 2025, see my review). He made an elegant Gustavo, highly attractive with a nice swagger to him. This Gustavo was selfish in an engaging way, living life for its own sake. Any production needs to tie up Gustavo’s character with the claims against him made by the conspirators Ribbing and Horn (whom Verdi treats highly seriously). Here, Gustavo’s heedlessness could easily have given rise to these sorts of problems. His claim on Amelia were similarly thoughtless. For the first two acts he careered onward on his selfish path, and Desole’s singing had real appeal here. Then at the very end of the opera, in a few bleak phrases, Verdi turns everything around and Desole’s elegance and style paid dividends here.

Dario Solari, whom we saw as Michele and Gianni Schicchi in Puccini’s Il Trittico with Welsh National Opera in 2024 [see my review] made a striking Anckarstrom. Beautifully sung and commanding of figure, this Anckarstrom was all style and warmth in the first two acts. A strong friend of Gustavo in Act One, Solari made his change of heart in Act Three quite believable as the man’s emotions turned on a pin. Solari’s account of ‘Eri tu’ was both beautifully sung and dramatic,  leading us in a dramatic arc to the moment when he killed Gustavo.

The libretto’s origins in a French grand opera goes some way to explaining the role of Oscar. This was the coloratura soprano needed to balance the more dramatic soprano Amelia. Oscar has a devil-may-care sense that runs through the opera, leading to the tragic moment when he allows Anckarstrom to almost trick him into revealing Gustavo’s costume at the ball. As in the 2019 original production, Rhian Lois’s Oscar was gender-fluid. The singer’s own feminine characteristics merging with the masculine visual presentation. In Lois’s hands, the results were delightful. Athletic in her person, she matched physicality with coloratura dexterity, bags of charm and a determination to have fun with the stuffed-shirts of Gustavo’s court. There was a slight sense that Oscar was in love with Gustavo, but this is something that was hardly developed, alas.

Rosalind Plowright’s incarnation as Madame Arvidson was visually and vocally compelling. Tall and elegant, Plowright leveraged this, complete with her remarkable tall headdress, making Arvidson a thing of mystery and leaving us in doubt about her credentials. In her interactions with Desole’s Gustavo (in disguise), Plowright brought out Arvidson’s conflicting emotions, clearly suggesting the woman might have recognised the king. Vocally Plowright does not attempt to disguise the different registers of her voice, but this meant that the lower lying passages were all the more remarkable. Plowright made her professional debut in 1975 (as Agathe in Der Freischütz)

Jihoon Kim made an admirably dark voiced Count Ribbing. There was never any doubt at all about the seriousness of his calling as a conspirator. Though Verdi writes quasi-comic music for the chorus of conspirators in Act Two, Kim was never in doubt as dark and intense. This was matched by Duncan Stenhouse’s highly effective Count Horn, the two making a striking double act. Benson Wilson was rather luxury casting as Cristiano, the soldier who has his fortune changed when he visits Madame Arvidson. Robert Jenkins was Madame Arvidson’s somewhat over-the-top helper, whilst Ian Massa-Harris-McFeely was Un Giudice (a judge, but her presented as a vicar).

The chorus was in great form and really leaned into the dramatic concept of the piece, from the male courtiers fencing to the over-the-top stylisation of the crowd attending Madame Arvidson to the comic yet highly disturbing conspirators at the end of Act Two. Then in Act Three it was all colour and movement as they showcased a series of dazzling costumes for the ball.

In the pit, Michael Papadopoulos conducted a sympathetic account of the score, with the right amount of dramatic impetus. There were perhaps moments when he gave the vocal lines a little too much leeway, but overall there was an admirable sense of tautness and flow to the drama. The orchestra, playing a reduction of the score, was in fine shape and the drama was never lacking.

Few productions of Un ballo in maschera come close to ideal, but here Rodula Gaitanou and Michael Papadopoulos created the right space to allow the singers to develop and shine. You feel that this production has a real chance of bedding in admirably, showcasing the genuine sense of interaction and partnership between Elin Pritchard, Matteo Deole and Dario Solari.