“Verdi is the composer of Life, and for sure he is the composer of my life,” Riccardo Muti writes in his book Verdi, the Italian: In Music, Our Roots, shortly due in English translation. “As a composer, he laid bare our passions and our pain, our best qualities and our flaws—so much so that we recognize ourselves in his characters. That’s what makes him universal. As long as humanity remains what it is today, each generation will find comfort in Verdi’s music.” Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball), with its juxtaposition of courtly brilliance and the heartbreak of private betrayal, of forbidden love and painful integrity, gives the maestro a particularly rich canvas to paint on. Not to be missed. —Matthew Gurewitsch