About the work
Gustave III. ou Le bal masqué is a grand opera in five acts by Daniel-François-Esprit Auber to a libretto by Eugène Scribe, first performed on 27 February 1833 at the Paris Opéra (Salle Le Peletier). The work dramatises the assassination of the Swedish king Gustav III at a masked ball in 1792.
Plot
At the court of the Swedish king Gustav III, a conspiracy takes shape in March 1792: a fortune-teller predicts that the king will die at the hand of a friend, a courtier feels his honour wounded by the king, and at a masked ball at the Stockholm opera house Gustav is finally shot.
Cultural significance
The lavishly staged masked ball of the fifth act was so famous that it was often performed separately. Scribe's libretto served Verdi some 25 years later as the basis for "Un ballo in maschera" (1859), which was repeatedly rewritten for censorship reasons and, in its final version, relocated to Boston.