Beethoven: Fidelio Highlights

Beethoven's opera, under the title Fidelio, insisted on by the theatre to avoid confusion with the Léonore of Gaveaux or the Leonora of Paër, was staged with limited success in Vienna in November 1805, introduced by the second of the four different overtures eventually written for the work. There were only three performances of this first version, mounted at a time when Vienna was occupied by the French and many of the composer's supporters had taken refuge elsewhere. Beethoven was induced to shorten the opera, with a libretto now revised by Stephan von Breuning. This version was staged the following year on 29th March and 10th April, this time with the third of the Leonore overtures, the best known in concert performance. It was then withdrawn, apparently through Beethoven's dissatisfaction either with the performance or the financial results. It was not until 1814, after further revision and changes in the libretto by Georg Friedrich Treitschke, an actor who had quickly risen in 1802 to the position of poet and stage manager of the German Court Theatre, that Fidelio was again staged in Vienna. The Fidelio overture was not ready for the first performance on 23rd May but was available for the second performance, three days later. It is in this final revision, with the new overture, that the opera Fidelio is now generally known. In the opera the name Fidelio is assumed by the heroine, Leonore, who disguises herself as a boy and takes employment under the gaoler Rocco in the prison where her husband Florestan is kept by his enemy, the prison governor Don Pizarro. She is able to rescue her husband from imminent death, as trumpets announce the arrival of higher authority, to give Don Pizarro his due and allow Leonore and her husband their freedom together.