Beethoven – Fidelio: Anja Kampe/Torsetn Kerl/Henry Waddington/Glyndebourne Festival Opera/Mark Elder
Glyndebourne
FIDELIO is ideally suited to be enjoyed in recorded performances – to be heard rather than seen. I know it may be breaking ranks to say this sort of thing, but I have seldom enjoyed it as a visual spectacle. This sounds like an attack on all that’s sacred – because, musically speaking, this is a 100 per cent politically correct opera. It’s Beethoven, for a start. It’s about liberty, freedom and human rights. And it shows that a woman is just as good as a man – in fact, rather better, because Florestan has got himself into a considerable spot of bother and his girlfriend has to go to considerable trouble to fish him out of it.
But considered as an opera? We don’t see the hero, the hapless Florestan until the second act. The writing is frequently more symphonic than operatic, with various solos and concerted numbers reaching such finale-sounding conclusions that the effect is of an opera constantly coming to a stop and then starting up again. Even as opera, the plot stretches the elasticity of credibility beyond breaking point.
Leonora, the heroine, disguises herself as a man, Fidelio, so as to get a job in Pizarro’s prison in order to bring about her husband’s escape. Then the jailor’s daughter falls in love with her. Pizarro is warned in an anonymous letter that his jail is to be officially inspected, so he decides to murder Florestan and bury him in the dungeon. A dramatic trumpet, heard in the distance and then near, announces the arrival just in time of the visiting inspection team. It all creaks a bit, really. But as music, it is sublime and as deeply moving as anything you’ll find in Beethoven.
This live recording, made at Glyndebourne in 2006 by John Barnes using microphones high above the pit, captures a tremendously dedicated and exciting performance. The opera was directed by Deborah Warner. The soloists are uniformly outstanding and the London Philharmonic under Mark Elder cover themselves in glory. High points for me were Florestan’s first big scene where he sings of the darkness of his imprisonment but is permanent hope for freedom and justice; the immortal quartet and the wonderfully dark musical colouring where the villain has Florestan’s grave dug preparatory to killing and burying him (with a terrific part for the double bassoon) and the hero’s and heroine’s final duet seems to come straight out of the Ninth Symphony.
The recorded sound quality is fine and atmospheric, but you should make allowances for a few bumps and other stage noises. The set is beautifully produced with excellent notes and synopsis and full libretto in German and English.
Robert Giddings
