Gustavo III (Verdi) to meet commitments regarding "Lear". Finally, in a letter which he wrote to Torelli in September 1857, Verdi confessed that he had "looked through an infinite number of plays...but not one of them will do for me..." but he then described an existing libretto which interested him, one which was written by the French playwright and librettist Eugene Scribe for Daniel Auber's very successful 1833 opera, "Gustave III, ou Le bal masqué": Verdi turned to the historical subject of King Gustav III of Sweden, who was shot while attending a masked ball in Stockholm in 1792 and died thirteen days
Gustavo III (Verdi) Gustavo III (Verdi) Gustavo III is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi to a libretto begun in early 1857 by the Italian playwright Antonio Somma. Never performed as written, the libretto was later revised (or proposed to be revised) several times under two additional names – "Una vendetta in domino" and "Adelia degli Adimari" – during which the setting was changed to vastly different locations. Eventually, it was agreed that it could be called "Un ballo in maschera", the one by which it is known today, but Verdi was forced to accept that the location of the story would have to