Fidelio

In the music course at which I am an irregular attender we have been studying Beethoven.

He only wrote one opera which is surprising as the other three major composers of the Viennese School – Haydn, Mozart and Schubert wrote many.

He was not short of librettos and many music scholars are puzzled why he only completed the one, Fidelio. To compose an opera is a badge of honour.

Cesar Franck’s wife insisted her husband composed a couple for his reputation but they are rather dull and rarely seen.

Debussy’s reputation was not established till he composed the opera Pelias et Melisande.

Opera in the eighteenth and nineteenth century tended to have a thin story line which was a peg to hang the aria.

Fidelio is the story of Leonora’s husband Florestan locked up in a prison by Governor Pisarro.

She dressed as a man, inveigles herself in with the gaoler Rocco and matters are complicated by Rocco’s daughter Marzaline falling in love with him/her.

 

The most famous aria is the song of the prisoners.

It is a short opera – barely two hours and – really more of an oratorio. Beethoven wrote two versions and four overtures, one much longer than customary.

The difficulty he had in completing the work may be the reason he did not compose another.

Hugo Wolf was a brilliant song writer but had difficulty with the longer form, Beethoven had no such problems. It’s a great opera, much is choral and recitative, but the problem I have with it is that German, unlike Italian or French, is too guttural and not mellifluous. Nonetheless it confirms Beethoven’s mastery of all forms of music .