Opera

Fidelio

Ludwig van Beethoven

Christine Mielitz’s production of Beethoven’s »Fidelio« celebrated its premiere on 7 October 1989. While local citizens took to the streets in front of the Semperoper in support of democracy and human rights, the director placed this »opera of liberation« in a contemporary prison courtyard featuring a surveillance tower and barbed wire.

At a time of revolution, terror and war, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his opera about a woman who, disguised as a man, tries to rescue her husband from illegal incarceration in a secret prison. In the story, the heroism of Leonore is juxtaposed with the banal world of the prison warden Rocco; simultaneously, grand opera is contrasted with German Singspiel. At the end comes liberation, delineated by Beethoven in almost superhuman, utopian music. More than three decades after its premiere, this Dresden production of »Fidelio« from 1989 has lost none of its intensity. 


Opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven
Libretto by Josef Sonnleithner, Stephan von Breuning und Georg Friedrich Treitschke

Performed in German with German and English surtitles (Spoken dialogue is not translated word for word.)

Premiere
7. October 1989,

No further performances in the current season.

Premiere cast

Sächsischer Staatsopernchor Dresden
Sinfoniechor Dresden – Extrachor der Semperoper Dresden
Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden

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Fidelio

Christine Mielitz’s production of Beethoven’s Fidelio celebrated its premiere on 7 October 1989. While local citizens took to the streets in front of the Semperoper in support of democracy and human rights, the director placed this opera of liberation in a contemporary prison courtyard featuring a surveillance tower and barbed wire. At a time of revolution, terror and war, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his opera about a woman who, disguised as a man, tries to rescue her husband from illegal incarceration in a secret prison. In the story, the heroism of Leonore is juxtaposed with the banal world of the prison warden Rocco; simultaneously, grand opera is contrasted with German Singspiel. At the end comes liberation, delineated by Beethoven in almost superhuman, utopian music. More than three decades after its premiere, this Dresden production of Fidelio from 1989 has lost none of its intensity.