OCR Text |
Show Verdi opera to air Verdi's "A Masked Ball" (Un Ballo in Maschera"), in its original Swedish setting, is the first broadcast of the 1981 Beatrice Foods-Lyric Foods-Lyric Opera of Chicago series. The opera will be broadcast at noon Saturday over KGSU-FM, KGSU-FM, the Southern Utah State College radio station. The performance, taped at Chicago's Civic Opera House InNovember, 1980, during Lyric's 26tb anniversary an-niversary season, features Luciano Pavarotti as King Gustavus III, Renata Scotto as Amelia, Leo Nucci as Count An-ckarstrom, An-ckarstrom, Patricia Payne as Madame Ar- vidson, and Kathleen Battle as the page, Oscar. John Pritchard conducts. Lyric Opera radio broadcasts are underwritten un-derwritten by Beatrice Foods, Co., and are produced and distributed by WFMT in Chicago to more than 300 radio stations across the United States. The series is hosted and produced by Norman Pellegrini, Lois Baum and Jim Unrath. "A Masked Ball" is based on the Eugene ScriDfi play "Gustave III." It dealt with the controversial Swedish monarch Gustavus III who ruled from 1771 until his murder in 1792 by a cabal of disgruntled aristocrates at a masked ball in Stockholm's Royal Opera House. The opera was commissioned com-missioned by Naples' Teatro San Carlo for the 1857-58 season but was rejected when the libretto was submitted for approval. ap-proval. Memories of the 1848 revolution throughout Europe were still vivid, and a change in setting was demanded. Because of the censors disapproval, Verdi's opera was moved from an 18th-century European setting to one in colonial Boston, where it remained until ,,(he middle part of this century. In recent years there has been a tendency to restore the original Swedish background, thus Lyric's performance. |