Afternoon at the opera: Fidelio

 Beethoven wrote a single opera, Fidelio. When I took a class in music of the Classical Era (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and other less known composers) the professor told us that he hoped we would be able to see Fidelio sometime and he hoped it would be in a language we didn't understand. We all chuckled. I took that to mean that it wasn't a good opera and assumed also from his statement that there were very few stagings of it. 

I might have been wrong, or he might just have been opinionated. He was a wonderful teacher with a good sense of humor who sadly died way too young, though.

Anyway, Fidelio is being performed at Lyric Opera of Chicago right now and we went to see it on Sunday. 

The main idea in the story is that Leonora's husband, Florestan, is being held as a political prisoner; Leonora disguises herself as a young man, Fidelio, and takes a job at the prison where she believes he is being held. He is indeed at the prison, held alone in the deepest dungeon, not treated at all well.  Fidelio/Leonora talks the head jailer, who is a decent person, into taking him/her down to that level to help with some tasks. She finds Florestan there, not in good shape, but has no way to free him. Pizarro is the villain in this story, the governor of the prison. He suddenly appears and wants to shoot Florestan. Leonora aims a pistol at Pizarro. Just then trumpets sound, announcing the arrival of the minister of prisons, who frees all the political prisoners, including Florestan.

Beethoven was a brilliant composer of orchestral and chamber music. He had already lost a lot of his hearing when he wrote Fidelio, which took him 11 years. The orchestral parts are amazing -- there are several extended duets for the two (French) horn players that are wonderful, in addition to the rest of the instrumental writing. (Full disclosure: I am a horn player.) The vocal writing is not bad, but not brilliant. And there isn't much action. I looked up articles on what various people think is wrong with Fidelio and basically found that most think it just doesn't work very well as a story, and also that Beethoven didn't write that well for the singers. Some also blame the combination of never having worked in opera and his hearing loss. 

Lyric Opera put on a wonderful production. They set it in the present and had a very cool revolving set showing different parts of the prison. A highlight for my husband and me was the orchestra, which was superb. And the theme of political prisoners is as relevant today as it was at its premiere in 1805 in Vienna.

Fidelio has challenging aspects, but the music is worth it.