Fidelio: a bad opera?

[Guest]

No one - not even Otto Klemperer - can convince me that Fidelio is anything other than (at best) a seriously flawed work.

To begin with the obvious: there are no 'real' characters in this opera, only abstractions masquerading as people - Florestan supposedly represents 'the oppressed', Leonara represents that old (even in 1808) chestnut 'the eternal feminine', Rocco represents the average Joe whose intentions are fine but who won't dare stick his head above the parapet for fear of getting it blown off. Don Pisarro is the most pathetically undeveloped villain in all operatic history (and that includes all of Verdi) - a Punch and Judy puppet of malignity jerked about by the strings of an over-simplistic plotline. Marzelline and Jacquino are a couple of fey teenagers who seem to have wandered in from some generic musical comedy.

A lot of people claim that Fidelio is 'the greatest of all operas', but what exactly do they mean? Don't they mean to say 'the noblest'? Well, if if you think free speech and freedom for all are noble ideals to strive for (which they may be), then fair enough. But it doesn't necessarily make for good music drama. I find Beethoven's only opera to be pompous, windy and dramatically empty.

This is not to deny that some of the music (but only some of it) is marvellous: the quartet in Act 1 and the Prisoners' Chorus. But there's a lot of trudging 'this'll do'-ness inbetween and - I repeat - the drama is painfully undernourished.

A more interesting opera would have portrayed Don Pisarro as a responsible military govenor, trying his best to restore order in a country that was verging on civil war. But I don't think such a 'grey' view of things would have appealed to the politically naive LvB.

Sidebar to all this - and on a slightly more frivolous note - the role of Leonora must be one of the most unappealing that a singer could be asked to consider: the impeccably elegant Nina Stemme was made up to look like some lardy fitter's mate in the recent Covent Garden production.

[StephenO]

You cannot be serious!

The music certainly is marvellous (and not 'only some of it'). The overtures - all of them - are amongst Beethoven's finest and I would defy anyone not to be moved by the Act 1 quartet. The characters and plot are no more abstract or over-simplistic than in the majority of operas, a genre not exactly noted for its realism or subtlety of charecterisation. Fidelio, however, has a message which resonates as powerfully today as it did at the time of its composition - and, yes, it is about freedom and about human dignity, with music to match the subject.

As for the Klemperer - one of the truly great recordings.

[Ventilhorn]

You cannot be serious!

The music certainly is marvellous (and not 'only some of it'). The overtures - all of them - are amongst Beethoven's finest and I would defy anyone not to be moved by the Act 1 quartet. The characters and plot are no more abstract or over-simplistic than in the majority of operas, a genre not exactly noted for its realism or subtlety of charecterisation. Fidelio, however, has a message which resonates as powerfully today as it did at the time of its composition - and, yes, it is about freedom and about human dignity, with music to match the subject.

As for the Klemperer - one of the truly great recordings.

Well spoken! You've said just about everything that I was going to say, so I can go back to my World Snooker!

vh

[Eudaimonia]

Well-said all around-- but whenever I remember Ha! Welch ein Augenblick as sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, I suddenly don't care whether it's a good opera or not... magnificent, dynamic singing of a memorable vengeance aria.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1s_65mxDPk

[Roehre]

Fidelio in its third version, i.e. the 1814 two-act opera, is not a good opera. The music is marvellous though hybrid, as it contains stylistic ruptures. there is the danger of it becoming rather quickly pompous. The opera is dramatically crap, a result from the tinkering in the libretto following its undeserved falling through during the French occupation of Vienna.

Leonore in its 3-part 1805 version on the contrary is musically as well as dramatically superior, as it has got unity of style and action. Far less pompous, much more humorous and humane.

Grosso modo I concur with Mandryka.

This said I hasten to add, that Beethoven is one of my most favourite composers, ranking among my personal top 3.

[Ferretfancy]

I've always been a bit resistant to Fidelio, and dare I say it, the late quartets as well. This is because in my youth both the opera and the quartets were spoken about in hushed tones, as if only the initiated could begin to understand them. This led to me ignoring them completely until later in life, which was probably my loss.
Nevertheless, I still feel that if it wasn't for the fact that Fidelio is Beethoven's only opera, it might be seen in a different light. The fist shaking against fate aspect of Beethoven is his least appealing side for me. His great predecessors obviously knew their own worth, but did they write for posterity? I don't think so.

Some might argue that the need to be significant has been the curse of much music making since the great man's time. It would be nice sometimes today to listen to some new music which has no axe to grind, but I'm probably straying off topic.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Whilst admiring Fidelio greatly (I think I listed it among my 10 favourites) there is one weakness that some conductors impose upon it, including Furtwangler: the insertion of Leonora no. 3 Overture at the opera's most dramatic moment. It beggars belief that anyone would want to do this.

[Roehre]

Whilst admiring Fidelio greatly (I think I listed it among my 10 favourites) there is one weakness that some conductors impose upon it, including Furtwangler: the insertion of Leonora no. 3 Overture at the opera's most dramatic moment. It beggars belief that anyone would want to do this.

It is Mahler * who started this, as IIRC he needed time for changing the stage (the same reason why Siegfried's funeral music was inserted in the Götterdämmerung, this time by the composer himself).

* strictly speaking not true. Alfred Roller included a changement de décor, for which he needed some 8-10 minutes. Mahler obliged by inserting Leonore III here. The alternative would have been an Entr'Acte composed by Mahler on beethovenian themes from the opera (as he did e.g. for Weber's Die Drei Pintos - the only completely mahlerian bit in this Mahler-completed Weber-opera)

[Bryn]

Roehre, are you familiar with the Soustrot recording claiming to be of the 1806 Leonore? If so, do you find it recommendable as a supplement? I have read that it uses a separate team of actors, rather than the singers, for the spoken aspects of the libretto. That in itself rather puts me off, but it does appear to be the only available recording of the 1806 version.

[Mandryka]

Roere and ff, I completely agree.....I've never heard Leonore and will now endeavour to do so.

Does anyone else feel that the 'woman disguised as a man' plot device (which Shakespeare seems to have found hilarious throughout most of his playwriting career) jars badly with 'all oppressors must fall' overall theme of the opera? These days - when 'believability' is required, it's difficult to find a female singer who can convince as both a woman and a man, though Karita Mattila looks astonishingly like Leonarda deCaprio in the most recent Met production DVD.

There is very little of Beethoven's music that I dislike (Fidelio and the 8th symphony being the only items that spring to mind), but when he confronts the 'issues of his age', he makes John Lennon look like a sophisticated political thinker.

[Roehre]

Roehre, are you familiar with the Soustrot recording claiming to be of the 1806 Leonore? If so, do you find it recommendable as a supplement? I have read that it uses a separate team of actors, rather than the singers, for the spoken aspects of the libretto. That in itself rather puts me off, but it does appear to be the only available recording of the 1806 version.

Bryn,
Indeed, Soustrot's Leonore is the Hess 110 version (i.e. the 1806 [2nd] version, the 1805 [first] one is Hess 109).

The musical parts (If you would like to call it that way) are worth the trouble.
However, the decision to parrot the old and much derided and complained about DGG habit to use actors for the spoken parts in opera recordings (I recall an excellent Fidelio with Fricsay which underwent this kind of treatment), doesn't work and would make me decide to go for another performance if there were one.

Unfortunately this MDG production IS the only 1806 Leonore available at the moment.

[Bryn]

Roehre, Barenboim, ahem.

[Actually, I don't baulk as much at the narrated version as much as I do the use of actors in place of singers.]

[Sydney Grew]

. . . To begin with the obvious: there are no 'real' characters in this opera, only abstractions masquerading as people . . .

We start back more than a little mystified by this requirement. There is no Art in Nature. Art begins to be Art only at the point where it departs from the natural. Neither Pelléas nor Mélisande nor Tristan nor Elektra is or should be anything like a "real character."

In the case of Fidelio though we should also remember something Oscar Wilde that great genius so cruelly persecuted in England said: "No artist has ethical sympathies."

[Barbirollians]

The production at the ROH recently was execrable and I felt sorry for Stemme and Watts . The male singers were less exciting .

It is an opera that is dependent on the production to a great degree in my experience . I defy anyone listening to the 1961 live Testament Klemperer however not to hear a great opera.

[aeolium]

I do think Fidelio is a great opera, mainly on account of its music. The drama is in the music much more than in any action. Robert Simpson many years ago gave an illuminating broadcast talk on the use of key signatures in the opera which showed what a lot of care had gone into the composition - I wish I could get a recording or transcript of that talk.

As to Leonore, I have heard it once some years back in (I think) a WNO performance. It struck me then as less tautly constructed than the revised opera, with more emphasis on the minor characters such as Marzellina. I think Florestan's aria "Gott, welch' Dunkel hier" was only written for the 1814 revision. Beethoven himself referred to the earlier incarnation of the opera as 'the ruins of an old castle' and ' a stranded ship' in letters to Treitschke while working on the revision. Having said that, I would like to hear Leonore again to get a better appreciation of the differences.

Does anyone else feel that the 'woman disguised as a man' plot device (which Shakespeare seems to have found hilarious throughout most of his playwriting career) jars badly with 'all oppressors must fall' overall theme of the opera?

No - it makes complete sense that the wife of a prisoner who wants to try to help him escape should disguise herself in that way. This was the only way in which she might be able to gain access to the dungeon. Beethoven was aso perhaps using the disguise device in a serious way as a conscious repudiation of its trivialising use in comic operas which he disliked or disapproved of (including Cosi fan Tutte).

There is very little of Beethoven's music that I dislike (Fidelio and the 8th symphony being the only items that spring to mind), but when he confronts the 'issues of his age', he makes John Lennon look like a sophisticated political thinker.

It's an opera, not a political or ethical treatise - of course issues are going to be treated with a broad brush, as they are in many other operas. It is not even a markedly revolutionary opera in that salvation comes from a good, higher authority (the Minister) rooting out a corrupt, lower authority (Pizarro, the prison governor).