Interview: Amélie Niermeyer, Tobias Kratzer, Frederic Wake-Walker
31st January 2020
Beethoven referred to Fidelio, his sole opera, as his “Sorgenkind” (problem child). It was a work that cost him much heartache, especially when the first version – Leonore – failed so badly at its 1805 premiere at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien. It tells the story of a political prisoner (Florestan) and his wife (Leonore) who disguises herself as a man to rescue him. It seems to start out as a Singspiel – with bags of spoken German dialogue – in the tradition of Mozart’s Entführung or Zauberflöte, with Marzelline and Jacquino having a lovers’ tiff whilst she does the ironing. But before long it turns into something very different by the quartet “Mir ist so wunderbar” whose radiance seems to anticipate the Adagio of Mahler’s heavenly Fourth Symphony nearly a century later.
Georg Zeppenfeld and Tobias Kratzer in rehearsals for Fidelio
© ROH | Lara Cappelli
Click here to read the full interview on Bachtrack.