Verdi worked on his first Opera, Oberto, but life quickly took a considerable turn for the worse. He married the daughter of one of his earlier benefactors, Margherita Barezzi, and they soon had their first child Virginia. Verdi returned to Busseto in 1835, replacing his old master Provesi who had recently died. Mr Montavon told AFP the Saturday premiere and four other performances had already sold out.From this point onwards Verdi’s life would enter the realm of extreme success and tragedy that would itself make a perfectly decent operatic plot. 'The concept is a little critical about America, the world of America with very rich people, very poor people, with war and the excesses of American society today,' Montavon said.Īn Erfurt politician has called for a boycott of the production, but local theatregoers have not heeded his call. The United States remains the setting for Austrian director Johann Kresnik's re-imagined opera, but this version is set in the United States after the Septemattacks. Nineteenth century censors demanded that Verdi move the opera's setting from Europe to colonial America so as not to depict the assassination of a European monarch.

Giuseppe Verdi wrote it about the 1792 assassination of Swedish king Gustavus III, who was shot while attending a masked ball. The 1859 opera is no stranger to controversy. Sixty local senior citizens applied for one of the on-stage roles, he added.

'It's a very beautiful, poetic scene,' Guy Montavon, the theatre's general manager, told AFP.

The Erfurt Theatre's production of A Masked Ball will feature 35 naked seniors wearing masks of the Disney character throughout the performance. The ruins of the World Trade Centre and naked senior citizens wearing Mickey Mouse masks will share a stage on Saturday, when a German theatre's sell-out reinterpretation of a Verdi opera opens.

Verdi opera set during 5th century