Fidelio

We named our boat “Fidelio” for only one reason. Although it was our favourite opera, the meaning of the opera included most of our feelings about the world. 

For many people, this opera is the story of the woman Leonora who, dressed as a man Fidelio, is prepared to lose her own life to save her husband. So “Fidelio” is actually female and a suitable name for our boat.

If there is just one section of opera that we should all see, it must be the second Act of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” which starts in the deepest depths of despair and ends with rejoicing and an ecstatic cry for freedom. It is the music which speaks to us with all these feelings.

Beethoven must have been a very messy person because he lived in at least 60 recorded lodgings before the new owner of the Theater an der Wien gave him a place to live in the theatre itself so he could write this, his only opera. The first two longer versions of “Fidelio” were performed here before he shortened it to the final version.

I have lived next door to this theatre and each day would walk past the old entrance Papagenotor where the first owner celebrated the source of his wealth with statues of Papageno and the three boys, characters from the opera “The Magic Flute” which made him wealthy.

One day, I asked people in the office if they knew that Beethoven actually lived in the theatre while he was composing “Fidelio”. Looking a little puzzled, one replied “We do have the Beethoven Room upstairs”. 

The first act shows what appear to be nice people living a normal life looking after a prison. Fidelio has managed to get a job there so that she can find her husband. Discovering what an awful time the prisoners are having in the dark dungeons, she manages to get permission for them to came up and get some fresh air. Unfortunately her husband does not appear with the other prisoners. 

Audiences just love the chorus the prisoners sing when they are hit by the light after being in darkness for so long. Unfortunately, they have to go back after they have sung their beautiful chorus. 

This chorus normally begins with the prisoners singing so softly and beautifully as they emerge. They gradually increase the volume even more beautifully. Audiences love this chorus. But the audience at a recent Vienna production was shocked when the prisoners immediately sang loudly as they were hit by the bright light. The director was sacrificing artistic “beauty” for narrative integrity. 

The comparison of this first act, where nice people go on enjoying their life while someone below awaits his death, with real life world events is too horrifying to consider. 

Before the Second Act begins, we normally hear the best of four overtures that Beethoven wrote for this opera. In fact, this overture tells the story of the second act with a distant trumpet call announcing the forthcoming rescue of the good hero and heroine. 

The Second Act begins by showing the horror of the  political prisoner Florestan awaiting his death. Later, a trumpet announces the approach of the good rescuers before the people celebrate the rescue of Florestan and other political prisoners. 

For me, the story is in the music. Wagner, the master of music drama himself, declared about his experience at a performance of “Fidelio”, “When I look back across my entire life, I find no event to place beside this in the impression it produced on me.” 

I always refer to that final chorus as a “yell of freedom” in contrast to the depths of despair with which the Second Act begins. The music has its darkness and its light throughout but finishes with Beethoven’s hope for the world in that final chorus.