Recorded live at last year's Lucerne
Festival, Claudio Abbado's Fidelio is as compelling as it is
beautiful.
Beethoven uses clarinet, oboe, horns and
strings to express what cannot be expressed in words, and the
instrumental performance is faultlessly sensitive to the drama
it is illustrating. The singing is heroic, both from Nina Stemme
as Leonore/Fidelio and Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan. Rachel
Harnisch is a touching Marzelline, Falk Struckman a terrifying
Don Pizarro.
