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Financial Times, March 02, 2020 |
Richard Fairman |
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Beethoven: Fidelio, Royal Opera House London, ab 1. März 2020 |
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Lise Davidsen is outstanding in the Royal Opera’s Fidelio
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In conceiving a political opera, Beethoven took the art form into new
territory. It would be a generation before anybody else followed. His
heartfelt cry for justice for political prisoners resonates as powerfully
now as it did in his own time.
This year marks Beethoven’s 250th
anniversary and Fidelio is a key work in arguing how relevant his music
still is. The Royal Opera has stepped forward to present a new production,
cast with stars new and established — young Lise Davidsen as Leonore and
Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan — and conducted by music director Antonio
Pappano. The controversial element will be Tobias Kratzer’s production,
which asks the important questions and challenges our conscience on the same
political issues today. If only it did not get tangled in some directorial
meddling on the way.
In the role of Leonore, the woman who heroically
rescues her husband, we have a symbol of hope for a better future, and many
opera-goers are probably feeling the same way about Davidsen. Gifted with a
big voice that is beautiful and expressive, she will surely be the
outstanding Leonore of the next generation. She already compares with the
best of the past, less daredevil than Anja Silja, but more flexible and
moving than Birgit Nilsson.
In the first act, she steps into a prison
at the time of the French Revolution, imagined here with oppressive gloom by
designer Rainer Sellmaier. In these claustrophobic period interiors, Robin
Tritschler’s modest Jaquino courts the very light-voiced Marzelline of
Amanda Forsythe, neither of them helped by the extra dialogue added by
Kratzer to flesh out their relationship. Georg Zeppenfeld brings his keen
bass voice to a businesslike Rocco and an intermittently potent impression
is made by Simon Neal’s Don Pizarro, a monster swathed in silk elegance. We
know he is a rotter because he throttles Marzelline’s pet canary.
From there the production makes a huge leap in period and style. Kratzer
sees Fidelio as an opera of two halves and the rest is performed as if at a
modern concert, where the choir members look on in increasing discomfort as
the 19th-century characters enter and play out their drama before them.
Should they intervene? Can today’s bystanders take up the flame of justice,
like those before?
The concept is good, but the denouement is bungled
(do we really need Marzelline accidentally turning up as the saviour?) and
the advocacy of a strong cast is tested. Kaufmann was announced as unwell,
but a Kaufmann at half throttle is better than none at all, and he was
welcome as always for his musicality. Pappano, in charge of an orchestra on
heat, never let the intensity sag and Egils Silins sang eloquently as a Don
Fernando who emerges from the chorus as a spokesman for the conscience of
the 21st century. There is a clear and strong message inside this production
struggling to get out. It could yet come back in future years as a powerful
show, albeit too late for Beethoven’s anniversary.
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