Fidelio: a bad opera?

[Roehre]

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.

But isn't it the point of opera that both music and drama should be convincing on stage?

[Mandryka]

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.



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).



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).

I like your last point, which is very relevant: the regime is not overthrown (and there is no suggestion that Pisarro is representative of the regime as a whole), instead a good man overrules a bad one.

Had Beethoven lived a century later (hard to imagine), he would probably have become better acquainted with his own innate conservatism.

[aeolium]

But isn't it the point of opera that both music and drama should be convincing on stage?

I think this is a relatively modern idea, dating from Wagner. But it depends on what you mean by convincing - if 'realistic' then I definitely don't think so. It is not realistic that a man weak and half-starved in an unlit dungeon should sing a bravura aria - and Treitschke realised the danger of such a setting: his answer was to include the verses about Leonore's image giving the prisoner new energy. But the whole of opera is artificial and requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. It is surely for its emotional power, not the realism of the action, that it is watched. I think of the Florestan aria as compared with a Shakespearean soliloquy - it is a musical window into Florestan's thoughts.

[Chris Newman]

Beethoven wrote Leonore and Fidelio on the threshold of Romanticism when reality really requires one's suspension of disbelief. He may appear to the stiff-minded as cack-handed but indeed was an explorer and pioneer and by the standards of operatic realism that followed . Expectations in Opera became partially realistic with the music of Wagner, much more so with Verismo (with which I would include Janacek and Berg). But look at all those early Verdi operas where understanding relies on the listener's knowledge of monumental and vitally important events that supposedly occur during long passages of time in the interval: Births, deaths, exiles, wars, years, etc. Unless you read the synopsis you can be totally lost.

I agree with aeolium that the revolutionary ideas are often misunderstood. Beethoven deals with a despot who tries to go beyond what is morally acceptable and is put in his place by his nobler superior. Beethoven does not advocate revolution. But like Mozart in the da Ponte operas LvB takes moral and political stances which was a different type of revolution in music. Personally, I would like to see compulsory attendance at a live performance of Fidelio each year by every politician be made a part of the United Nations Charter.

The music is (IMHO) some on the most sublime ever written.

[Serial_Apologist]

Beethoven lived a few decades early to have encountered the Dictatorship of the Proletariat... let alone the concept of permanent revolution.

[Barbirollians]

The more I hear it the more I love this opera - I was perhaps too much influenced by reviews and steered clear of the studio Klemperer in favour of the live account . Having got to know the studio recording recently I can understand why it is was such a classic and although a mezzo for whom the role was not easy Christa Ludwig truly melts one’s heart as Leonore.

[gradus]

I agree, what a singer!