Fidelio

Creation

Fidelio is Beethoven's only opera. It was originally called Leonore, after the leading character and premiered in Vienna on November 20, 1805. It was not an immediate success. One big reason is that Napoleon had just invaded Vienna and Beethoven's German speaking patrons and audience base had deserted the city. The audience for the premiere performance were largely Napoleaon's French speaking officers who if they knew opera at all, knew it as French Grand Opera (think Cherubini, Rossini). Beethoven would have thought such styles too frivolous. To make matters worse, the work was criticized for a lack of balance (more on that later).

A little background is needed. Beethoven was initially writing a different opera based on a libretto from Schikaneder, Mozart's librettist for The Magic Flute. But Beethoven really wanted something more exalted. He would not have set to music many of the librettos that Mozart did work with. He would have accused Mozart of froth and frivolity. Beethoven wanted something more serious -- grand and noble. So when the libretto for "Leonore or the Triumph of Marital Love" came to him, he abandoned the prior project and set to work on Leonore.

After a few performances in 1805, Beethoven withdrew the work for re-writing. It was presented a second time in Vienna in 1806, but still lacked the impact for which he had hoped. It sat for years until re-worked and presented again in 1814, also in Vienna. But 9 years after the inital premiere, Vienna was a different place. In 1814 Napoleon had just been defeated and Europe was planning for a re-structuring. The creation of Leonore/Fidelio was bookended by Napoleon's military ambitions. Fidelio, as it was now called, was a great success and was the featured entertainment that accompanied many of the political gatherings that redefined Europe.

The convoluted creation story of the opera also explains why there are multiple overtures to the opera. The first three are called Leonore Overture #1, 2 and 3 and the final one is simply the Fidelio Overture that has been used since 1814. Presumably, #1 was written for the 1805 premiere, but was abandoned before the opening and replaced with #2 and then by #3 for the second attempt in 1806. Then Leonore #1 was dusted off and re-worked for a planned re-boot in Prague that then got cancelled. (Note: There is a Leonore #4 but that one was not written by Beethoven, by rather was written for the Hoffnung Festival by Malcolm Arnold -- the film score composer for David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai.

Part of the imbalance of the early versions of the opera were due to the excesses of Leonore #2. It is more like a full symphony than an overture, and the complaint of the audiences was that the opera was too slight in comparison to the very full overture. Leonore #3 also strikes me as a very complete experience that could be the entire evening by itself.

After the 1814 success, Fidelio met with continued success across Europe. Depending on who tells the story, either in the mid-1800's or much later with Mahler conducting, it became the common practice to perform Leonore #3 between the two scenes of the second act.

Memorable Scenes

From a 10,000 foot view, Fidelio has two outstanding components. The first is a difficult, sublime quartet (Mir ist so wunderbar) early in the first act. Overall, singers and conductors consider Fidelio a difficult piece to stage and much of that difficulty is to get the timing and dynamics of the quartet just right. The second is a powerfully moving and equally sublime chorus (O welche lust) towards the end of the first act. The quartet discusses half of the love triangle from four different perspectives. To fully appreciate the artistry you must study the libretto in advance (it's available on this page in a subsequent heading). You may think the opening phrase of the quartet means, "I feel wonderful", but it does not. The German lexicon has been under constant revision and in the very late 1700's the phrase would have been more correctly translated as, "I feel strange," or "I feel uneasy." Certainly, either of those translations aligns with the message Marcellina is trying to convey -- she is perplexed and trying to figure out how to push Jaquino away because she is now in love with Fidelio. Modern confusion may be forgiven and explained by the Wunderbar scene in Cole Porter's Kiss me Kate from 1953. In Kate the meaning is more "wonderful", the same wonderfulness as for Maria in Sondheim's I feel pretty.

The second stand-out scene, "O welche lust," is the Prisoner's Chorus that captures the fear, longing for freedom and the brief relief and delight of the poltical prisoners. I have found that the staging makes a difference on how this scene comes across. The music is dramatic and sublime in most all productions, but when the scene is well staged it is shattering. The Met, with it's very large stage and budget did a great job in its production.

Freiheit

Beethoven's master opera almost never saw the inside of an opera house due to censorship. In 1795, Austria passed a law forbidding the word "Freiheit" (Freedom) in a stage work -- unless it refered to a prisoner being released from bondage. It could not be used as an abstract political concept. That's because political organizations at the time were oppressive and regressive. State power was dispersed among numerous Duchies, fiefdoms and principalities -- each of which had their own dungeons for political prisoners. But Beethoven was able to argue for its showing and won. We, and many others before us agree, however, that it is a very political opera. This contributes to the fact that it has been set in many locales and eras commenting on many different oppressive regimes.

Fidelio, in fact, is one point of a line that runs through the Fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9, 1989). Recall the Christmas Day just following -- Leonard Bernstein led a Berlin performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony. In the final act he and others made the decision to replace Freude (Joy) with Freiheit. The explosive celebration of Florestan's freedom at the end of Fidelio is a pre-echo of the exuberance of the Ode to Joy during that 1989 (and presumably any) performance of the 9th symphony.

Please take the time to go through the other items on this Fidelio page -- espcially the "ROH Insights on Fidelio" video -- to hear discussions of the Beethoven's genius use of both the German language and all the musical tricks and tools of opera composition. Sir Anthony reveals the influence of Mozart and also discusses the musical "cell" -- a seeming precursor to the Wagner leitmotifs. (Wagner greatly admired Beethoven and there is a likely apocryphal story that a viewing of Fidelio in Leipzig inspired Wagner to pursue opera composition. Wagner is quoted to have stated that he believed Leonore #3 to be "the most perfect drama in intself".

Fidelio as precursor to 9th Symphony