He started with a true rescue-opera story from the French Revolution, he blessed it with some of his most sublime music, then took a decade to rework it in multiple ways, never satisfied. Details of this saga are here. “This opera will earn me a martyr’s crown,” he predicted. But he is also quoted as saying that ‘it is the work that brought me the most sorrow, for that reason it is the one most dear to me.’ He never wrote another opera.
Two operas in one
Beethoven's relationship to Fidelio could not be more different from Rossini's same-decade fluffball rescue opera, which he claimed to have completed in 18 days. But both broke the mold of beautiful distressed damsel rescued by glamorous tenor. Fidelio challenged that story dramatically and musically: the heroine is disguised as a man and entoiled in a gender-challenged subplot; the hero doesn't appear till the second half and then is unrecognisable in the filth and misery of a dungeon.
It was wise to worry about the libretto - it split the opera into two stories and two musical modes, hard to unite in one opera that remains awkward in most productions.
The first act falls clearly into the tradition of the Singspiel, a term designating German operas constructed on alternating spoken dialogues and musical morsels, like Mozart’s Magic Flute.In the second act, the dialogues occupy a far more limited place, allowing the role of the orchestra to flourish as the vector for the steadily increasing dramatic tension. Sound processes are first used to create a despairing atmosphere out of which will come the final light, dissipating the darkness of imprisonment. Read more about the challenges here.
Celebration of life
And those stories? For a synopsis of the opera, go to Wiki or the Met.
But for a full and heartfelt exploration of the flaws and magnificence of this hybrid opera, there's no better source than Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts.
Berstein introduces Fidelio as one of Beethoven's greatest works, "containing some of the most glorious music ever conceived by a mortal, one of the most cherished and revered of all operas, a timeless monument to love, life, and liberty, a celebration of human rights, of freedom to speak out, to dissent. It's a political manifesto against tyranny and oppression, a hymn to the beauty and sanctity of marriage, an exalted affirmation of faith in God as the ultimate human resource."
You can read the text of that presentation here. But better - much better - spend 50 minutes listening to the concert here, to Lennie at his most fervent, the New York Philharmonic up close and a group of young Juilliard students singing the brilliant arias.
Oddly, his introduction doesn't feature the Prisoners' chorus, perhaps the most famous and recognisable music in this opera.
Listen here to the Met Opera's chorus. And here are the prisoners in the production conducted by Leonard Bernstein himself in 1978: at Wiener Staatsoper. More familiarly, listen (with English translation) to Beethoven's music, performed by Orfeón Donostiarra from Spain's Basque country, with the BBC Philharmonic, at the 2017 BBC Proms.
Our productions
Beethoven created formidable challenges for the lead singers. Sadly there is no DVD of the great Jon Vickers playing Florestan. We have two performances to compare in our sessions - 15 years apart. In that time, the opera became a challenge and an opportunity for radical directors to explore its two-part structure and re-interpret its messages of tyranny and freedom. So we have one very traditional production and one revisionist.
From 2004, in Zurich, our traditional production was recorded with the orchestra conducted by baroque specialist Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Leonora is played by Camilla Nylund, and Florestan by Jonas Kaufmann, both to rave reviews. But at least one critic chafed at the traditional production. "It’s not offensive and it doesn’t really get in the way of the story but it seems quite devoid of originality." Listen here to their reunion.
By comparison, in 2020, Royal Opera House starred Lise Davidson, superb as Leonora. Florestan is sung in our recording by David Butt Phillips, replacing an ailing Kaufmann. More about him here. He'd sung the role in Prague and Glyndebourne and is seen as one of the exciting new voices in opera. The production by Tobias Kratzer split the opera dramatically in two ages, Act I a period piece comedy, Act II a modern analysis of issues of freedom, rights and tyranny.
Not surprisingly, that two part production also split the reviewers. Kratzer even changed the plot, having Marzelline discover Leonora's disguise before Act II begins. The rethink is brilliant, according to Clive Paget in Limelight ($); silly according to Telegraph ($), and uneven according to Tim Ashley, the Guardian reviewer, who raises a useful issue for consideration:
Kratzer’s point, that the silent majority all too frequently resist political engagement until after events have nearly run their course, unquestionably resonates with our own times, but has little to do with Beethoven’s vision of divine providence working through human activity to establish true justice on earth.
If you have time, you can listen here to the 'special insight' from the ROH - over an hour - with four of the cast - including (“under the weather”) Kaufmann.
Bachtrack's reviewer found Lise Davidson's debut astounding. "Listening to Lise Davidsen is like watching a Roger Federer serve: there’s elegance, grace, apparently effortless fluidity. There’s also more power than everyone else." He concluded, almost as an afterthought, that the production works - "Director Tobias Kratzer takes the intelligent approach of making a virtue of necessity and staging the two acts completely differently, each with its own Big Idea."
Most reviewers disagree. Why? There's a useful discussion here.
Too fussy, argued Robert Hugill, though the idea was good. But who cared, when the singing was so wonderful. Guardian printed a very critical review. But check out Gramophone's re-view of it as presented in our recording, in which a new tenor replaced ailing Kaufmann, to great applause. Want to know more about David Butt Philip? He's been around: a very interesting interview here.
Here's an extra: Jonas Kaufmann in 2015 talking about three of his roles, including Florestan. If you don't have 20 minutes, go to count 9.00 to hear him speak of the Act II aria where Florestan enters the drama. The aria from his 2004 performance in Zurich is recorded here. Here's his 2015 performance in Salzburg in another radical (and widely booed) production presenting Fidelio as a psychological exploration of the idea that we all live within self-devised prisons.
Lyn, 23/7/23
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