Fidelio - Beethoven Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Some good some not so good.

Fidelio is musically a marvellous opera, it's a pity Beethoven didn't write more. During the overture I thought this was going to be an outstanding performance. I thought the overture was terrific. Taken at a slowish pace, which I like, but beautifully played. However the whole didn't live up to this all the time and I had quite a few reservations. First the pace, it continued mostly fairly slow but not always with the same effect and sometimes it got a bit ragged, especially the large ensembles.. Fidelio's wig was quite ridiculous and a permanent irritation, quite out of keeping with the rest of the the cast who had more or less normal hair. I didn't like Pizzaro's voice, it seemed to jar, especially when he was singing with others.

And the the very famous and magical prisoners chorus about which I have strong views. The last DVD of Fidelio I watched made a mess of this, all in the dark, and this was worse. The first words are 'Oh joy'. It is about prisoners who have been confined in a dark dungeon for a long time and finally being allowed into the open and singing about their wonder and joy on coming into the sunshine and fresh air. They are rejoicing, albeit after a long and miserable confinement. When this is performed properly it is sheer magic. But in this performance we were looking at the conductor when they started to sing, and then worse, when we saw them they were all standing together quite still and mostly in the dark. So it looked as though they were singing a gloomy dirge. The whole effect was completely lost, apart from the music which was still the same but its effect totally diminished by what we were seeing.

However a lot of it was very good and enjoyable. The Florestan was extremely good and his first aria wonderfully and very movingly sung. His duet with Leonora was absolutely brilliant and the highlight of the DVD.

Well worth watching and you may well disagree with my reservations.