Beethoven Fidelio

In the Beethoven Year 2027, our partnership with the Vienna State opera continues with Fidelio, an opera celebrating the spirit of freedom and conjugal love. This is wonderful because Beethoven premiered the third and last version of his only opera at Vienna’s Kärtnerthortheater, literally a few steps away from today’s Staatsoper.

Fidelio is a so-called Befreiungsoper (“rescue opera”), where the main character is saved from great danger, such as political imprisonment. With origins in the French opera comique, spoken dialogue connects the musical numbers in this genre. Indeed, Beethoven’s source is an opera from 1798 called Léonore, ou l’Amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, set to a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly.

In the story, the courageous Leonore disguises herself as a young man, called Fidelio, to find work in a prison where her husband Florestan is detained by a corrupt gouvernor. 

As was wont with Beethoven, the emergence of a new work meant a huge creative struggle. For us, it is fascinating to observe how Fidelio’s music and form gradually move from a light-hearted Singspiel to something far more imposing, all along with the increase in weightiness of the subject.