Verdi's opera of love, conspiracy and a murder foretold comes to Covent Garden in a new staging by Philipp Stölzl, his first for The Royal Opera, with Jakub Hrůša conducting. Here is everything you need to know before you book.
Un ballo in maschera (A Masked Ball) opens on the Main Stage of the Royal Opera House on Monday 30 November 2026, the first night of a new production by the German director and designer Philipp Stölzl. It is his Royal Opera debut, and the house has billed the staging as playfully surreal, a description not often attached to Verdi. The run is a short one, closing on Friday 18 December, so the choice of date matters more than usual.
Who is starring in Un ballo in maschera?
The principal company is Charles Castronovo, Malin Byström, Aleksei Isaev, Anita Rachvelishvili and Kseniia Nikolaieva. The Royal Opera has named the five together without yet setting out who sings which part, so the casting of Gustavo, Amelia, Renato, the fortune-teller Ulrica and the page Oscar is worth checking against the performance you choose.
Spotlight on Charles Castronovo
Born in New York and a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artist Program, Castronovo has a long list of Royal Opera credits: Mozart's Ferrando, Tamino and Don Ottavio, Alfredo in La traviata, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Ruggero in La rondine, Rodolfo in La bohème, Tom Rakewell in The Rake's Progress and Don José in Carmen. Read in order, that list traces a lyric tenor taking on progressively heavier parts, which is precisely the journey this opera's tenor role asks of a singer across one evening: grace and wit in the early scenes, real weight by the last. He also comes to it knowing the score from the inside, having sung the tenor lead, Riccardo, at the Metropolitan Opera, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Zurich Opera and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. That experience of other stagings is no small asset to a director trying something new, and this run of Un ballo in maschera is the chance to hear him in the piece in London.
What is Un ballo in maschera about?
Verdi drew his plot from a real killing: the assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden, shot at a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792, in a conspiracy that the fortune-teller Ulrica Arvidsson was said to have foreseen. The censors of the day would not allow a king to be murdered on stage, and for the 1859 premiere in Rome the action was moved to colonial Boston. This production uses the Swedish names.
Gustavo has power, charm and an appetite for life, and he is in love with Amelia, the wife of his closest friend and adviser, Renato. A fortune-teller warns that he will be killed by the first man to shake his hand, conspirators gather, and when Renato comes to believe he has been betrayed he joins them. Everything leads to the ball of the title.
Stölzl describes the piece as a wild theatrical rollercoaster in which romance collides with violence and comedy with tragedy. He has designed the sets himself, rotating ones that echo the forward drive of the score, and the campaign images give a fair idea of the look: stark yellow rooms, figures in black and faces made up in a style borrowed from the 1920s.
Who is behind the production?
Philipp Stölzl directs and designs the sets. Costumes are by Antony McDonald, whose earlier Royal Opera work includes Alcina and Hansel and Gretel, lighting is by Gerrit Jurda and movement direction is by Sarah Fahie. Jakub Hrůša conducts.
When and where can I see it?
Un ballo in maschera runs on the Main Stage at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Monday 30 November to Friday 18 December 2026. The first night begins at 7pm, and the following performances announced so far, on Wednesday 2 and Monday 7 December, at 7.30pm. The opera lasts about 2 hours 50 minutes, including one interval, and is sung in Italian with English surtitles on screens above the stage and around the auditorium. Because this is a new production, its age guidance and content warnings have not yet been confirmed.
Step-free routes lead to more than 100 seats in the Stalls Circle, Balcony and Amphitheatre, and assistive listening is available in the auditorium. Tickets for Un ballo in maschera currently start at £50.
What else should I book if I like it?
For more Verdi, English National Opera's La traviata runs at the London Coliseum from 3 February to 13 March 2027. Sooner than that, ENO's new Tosca is at the Coliseum until 11 December, another opera in which desire and political power end in killing; our review roundup gathers what the critics made of it. Back in Covent Garden, The Magic Flute returns from 13 December for a lighter evening at the opera, and Puccini's triple bill Il Trittico follows in March 2027.
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