Ludwig Van BEETHOVEN (1770-1827)
Fidelio (The triumph of married love)
- Opera in Two Acts. Op.72 (1814)
Leonore/Fidelio, wife of a political prisoner - Christa Ludwig
(soprano); Florestan, her husband - James King (tenor); Rocco,
gaoler - Joseph Greindl (bass); Pizarro, Prison Governor - Walter
Berry (baritone); Marzelline, Rocco’s daughter in love
with Fidelio - Lisa Otto (soprano); Jaquino, assistant gaoler,
in love with Marzelline - Martin Vantin (tenor); Don Fernando,
Governor of the Province - William Dooley (bass)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Deutsche Oper, Berlin/Arthur Rother
Stage Director: Gustav Rudolf Sellner
Set and Costumes: Wilhelm Reinking
rec. live, Deutsche Oper Berlin, 1962-1963
PCM Mono. Picture Format 4:3. DVD 9 NTSC.
Subtitles in German (original language), English, French, Spanish,
Italian, Korean
ARTHAUS MUSIK DVD 101597 [124:00]
History often has an important part to play in the composition
and performance of opera. This relationship brings the present
performance, in black and white, into the public domain after
fifty years. Often such issues on DVD are influenced by the
presence of a great conductor or roster of artists. Worthy as
these factors are in this case it is the historical associations
that are paramount. The performance celebrated the opening of
the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 7 November 1912 under the title
of Deutsches Opernhaus.
The new opera house was built as a speculative venture to profit
by performing Wagner operas, due to their come out of copyright
in 1914. It opened with a performance of Beethoven's Fidelio
and it was that opera that was chosen for the 50th
anniversary concert on 7 November 1962. This DVD derives from
a film of the production made for TV and transmitted on 17 June
1963, the tenth anniversary of the popular uprising in the then
German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
Looking back on musical history it seems strange to us today
that Beethoven, widely recognised as the pre-eminent composer
of his time, only managed to write one opera and that after
two unsatisfactory trials and much revision. As the son of a
singer and grandson of a former Kapellmeister, Beethoven must
have become familiar as a boy with theatrical repertoire. In
later years, in Bonn and then Vienna, he certainly encountered
a wide operatic repertoire. In both cities Beethoven contributed
music for theatrical productions providing a score in Vienna
for the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus. He also wrote
arias for use in operas by other composers. It was not until
1803 that he started work on what was to be his only opera.
Fidelio based on a French play Leonora or Conjugal
love of 1798. It’s a typical rescue opera, deriving
from an incident during the French Revolution’s Reign
of Terror.
The translator of the German version of the French play was
given the job of director of the Theater-an-der-Wien, replacing
the actor-manager Emanuel Schikaneder, author of the libretto
of Mozart's Die Zauberflote. In accordance with terms
already agreed with Schikaneder, Beethoven occupied rooms at
the theatre during the composition. These were at the very advantageous
rate of free lodging during the composition and ten per cent
of the box office proceeds from the first ten performances The
new lessee of the theatre renewed this arrangement. The first
sketches of Beethoven’s Leonore, his favourite
title, date from 1803 and are contemporaneous with his Eroica
symphony.
Beethoven worked assiduously and meticulously throughout 1804
and 1805 making many sketches including eighteen for Florestan’s
first aria. To avoid confusion with Paer’s opera based
on the same play, Beethoven's work was given under the title
Fidelio. Blighted by poor casting and the invasion of
Vienna by Napoleon shortly before the premiere in November 1805,
it was greeted poorly by a sparse audience. Beethoven withdrew
it after three performances.
Friends encouraged Beethoven to shorten the work with a revised
libretto of two acts instead of three. This revision was performed
at the end of March 1806, this time with the third of the Leonore
overtures, now best known in concert performance. It was then
withdrawn, apparently through Beethoven's dissatisfaction either
with the performance or the financial results after two performances.
When Beethoven published music from the opera himself, he used
his preferred title of Leonore.
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 the opera as Fidelio
was again staged in Vienna. The Fidelio overture was
not ready for the first performance on 23 May 1814 but was available
for the second performance, three days later. It is in this
final revision, with the new overture, that the opera Fidelio,
as it is now known, was premiered. Leonore overture number
three is often given as an introduction to the second act.
The name Fidelio is assumed by the heroine, Leonore, who disguises
herself as a boy. She 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 the
King’s Governor. Leonore and her husband get their freedom
whilst Don Pizarro gets his due, a shot being heard off stage
after he has been lead away with a hood over his head.
The conductor of this celebratory performance, Artur Rother,
had been a mainstay of the house and had been personally involved
in much of its former history. After joining in 1934 in the
28 years leading up to the anniversary he had conducted no fewer
than 66 premieres. He is no mere routinier, conducting a well
paced and dramatically involving performance. The production
was in the hands of theatre director Gustav Rudolf Sellner and
his chief set designer Wilhelm Reinking. It is a traditional
production - Regietheater had not yet raised its head in East
Germany - with costumes and set all within period. The picture
is sharp with close-ups predominating giving little opportunity
to see the set as a whole. The sound with limited treble is
a little fierce.
Many of the singing cast would go on to international careers
and appear in these roles, and many others, at some of the best
operatic addresses. There are several particularly notable interpretations.
First and foremost is the masculine-looking Leonore of Christa
Ludwig. With a Presley haircut, any impressionable young lass
would be taken by him as Fidelio. Her singing of the demanding
Abscheulicher (CH.16) is appealing in tone, expression
and lyricism; no wonder she became a favourite of Karajan and
Klemperer among others. Likewise Walter Berry who sings strongly
and portrays a particularly brutal Pizarro with flashing eyes
and malevolent facial expression. Berry conveys Pizarro’s
cynicism perfectly as he plays with a bag of money and tries
to bribe Rocco (CH.15). Add vocal bite and his portrayal is
particularly demonic and chilling. It is easy to understand
Rocco’s abject fear of him. In the latter role the more
experienced and physically imposing Joseph Greindl portrays
both a sympathetic father to Marzelline alongside his moral
equivocation in respect of his prisoner and his fear of Pizarro.
His vocal and acted contribution in the two trios (CHs 10 and
30) and quartets (CHs 6 and 32) as well as in the duets between
Rocco and Fidelio and Pizarro does much to anchor the whole
performance; albeit he has an unsteady moment in his aria (CH.8).
The often-underrated James King, his slim lithe figure belying
the strength of his true lyric tenor tone, is a tower of acting
and singing strength, hitting the demanding notes of his big
aria at the start of act 2 with impact and accuracy (CHs.25-26).
The young Lisa Otto plays an impressionable and winsome young
girl to perfection. She sings with light tone, vocal flexibility
and good characterisation (CH.4). It’s a poignant moment
when she realises that her Fidelio is in fact the wife of the
prisoner in the dungeon, and that she should perhaps not have
spurned Jaquino’s advances. As her suitor Jaquino, Martin
Vantan is less than ideal, looking too old and rather starchy
as he presses his suit (CH.3). The chorus are outstanding (CHs.10
and 36) and the finale is realised with drama as Don Ferrando
hands Leonore the keys to release her husband from his shackles
(CH.37).
Robert J Farr
A dramatically cohesive house production from yesteryear with
an excellent cast in a production without gimmicks.