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FIDELIO OR BEETHOVEN'S ONLY OPERA

Fidelio is Beethoven's only opera. Composed over a period of 10 years, it was repeatedly reworked until its final version in 1814.

Beethoven wrote four overtures in succession, but was never fully satisfied with any of them. The third, known as Leonore III, is the most commonly chosen today. Magnificently orchestrated, this work, based on a play by the French playwright Jean-Nicolas Bouilly entitled "Léonore ou l'amour conjugal" (Leonore or Conjugal Love), takes up the themes dear to the composer: freedom, fraternity, justice and idealism.

THE STORY

The libretto is inspired by a true story: in France during the Terror, a woman cross-dresses and risks her life to free her husband from prison in Tours.

Here, the action takes place in 18th-century Seville, within the walls of a state prison ruled with an iron fist by the sinister governor Don Pizarro. Leonore, disguised as a man, hires herself out as a jailer to help her imprisoned husband escape.

THE MAIN ROLES

• Florestan, aristocrat and prisoner, tenor
• Léonore, Florestan's wife disguised as Fidelio, soprano
• Rocco, jailer, bass
• Marzelline, his daughter, soprano
• Don Pizarro, prison governor, bass baritone
• Don Fernando, the King's minister, bass
• The chorus of prisoners, soldiers and commoners.