Concert performance of FIDELIO
Last Thursday night I was in Edinburgh for a concert to mark the 80th birthday of the conductor Sir Charles Mackkeras. He chose Beethoven to celebrate and there is no more uplifting piece in Beethoven's oeuvre than Fidelio.
The singers looked as if they had just come out of Wagner's Das Rheingold playing the GIANTS such was their physical stature and presence! Christine Brewer gave a very committed performance in the title role though the tenor playing Florestan seemed taxed towards the end of his big aria - what a build up there is to this too!
The oddity here was the playing of Leonore No 3 just after the 2 lovers sing of their great joy but before the very public celebration of Florestan's freedom. At first I had misgivings about this but as I listened to this compact masterpiece of orchestral writing it seemed to me to be "connected" in a way that it normally isn't.
Its original creation was in the context of this opera and placed where it was it came across as a purely "orchestral" or abstract celebration of freedom as compared with the preceding private and subsequent public celebrations. It reminded me of a similar passage towards the end of the 9th Symphony for orchestra only just before the chorus belts out the main theme. It also reminded me of the Gross Fugue oddly enough which is also played as a stand alone piece but which I much prefer as the end of Op 130.
Anyway, it was a great concert, well worth the journey to Edinburgh!
The singers looked as if they had just come out of Wagner's Das Rheingold playing the GIANTS such was their physical stature and presence! Christine Brewer gave a very committed performance in the title role though the tenor playing Florestan seemed taxed towards the end of his big aria - what a build up there is to this too!
The oddity here was the playing of Leonore No 3 just after the 2 lovers sing of their great joy but before the very public celebration of Florestan's freedom. At first I had misgivings about this but as I listened to this compact masterpiece of orchestral writing it seemed to me to be "connected" in a way that it normally isn't.
Its original creation was in the context of this opera and placed where it was it came across as a purely "orchestral" or abstract celebration of freedom as compared with the preceding private and subsequent public celebrations. It reminded me of a similar passage towards the end of the 9th Symphony for orchestra only just before the chorus belts out the main theme. It also reminded me of the Gross Fugue oddly enough which is also played as a stand alone piece but which I much prefer as the end of Op 130.
Anyway, it was a great concert, well worth the journey to Edinburgh!
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