Kennedy Center’s All Star Cast Shines in Fidelio – Beethoven’s Only Opera Merges Love, War and Tenderness
Fidelio
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Jordan Wright
October 28, 2024
Derek Welton (Pizarro), David Leigh (Rocco), Sinéad Campbell Wallace (Leonore), Jamez McCorkle (Florestan) (Photo/Cory Weaver)
Hear ye! Hear ye! Ludvig Van Beethoven’s Fidelio is revived at the Kennedy Center! The only opera the composer ever wrote took him decades to finish and was poorly received when it premiered in Vienna in 1805. Since then, it has undergone the efforts of three librettists, overture substitutions and ten difficult years of struggles until ultimately becoming the sweeping opera we know today.
Written during the extreme censorship period after the French Revolution in the aftermath of the Reign of Terror, Beethoven was forced to work in secret and at the very same time he had begun to lose his hearing. It is a radical departure from the dire politics of the period and a time in which any discussion of peace, enduring love, and ultimate freedom from those in power would have meant imprisonment. In this climate, the composer who held firmly to the belief that love conquers all and love endures all things including torture, imprisonment and starvation, toiled.
Sinéad Campbell Wallace and Jamez McCorkle (Photo/Cory Weaver)
Based on a true story, Florestan (James McCorkle) is a revolutionary leader jailed in a Spanish prison for his political views. To free him, his faithful wife, Lenore (Sinéad Campbell Wallace) disguises herself as a man, Fidelio. Lenore as Fidelio comes to work for Rocco (David Leigh) the prison warden whose daughter, Marzelline (Tiffany Choe) has fallen madly in love with Fidelio thinking he’s a man, and spurned her avid suitor, Jaquino (Sahel Salam). Don Pizarro (Derek Welton) is the cruel governor of the prison who imprisoned Florestan. Deeming him to be a threat to his power, Pizarro plans to kill him. The French called this a “rescue opera” evolving from the term “opéra comique”. Because, yes! There are some very funny bits, especially in the mistaken identity of Fidelio as a man.
Erhard Rom’s set design on a two-tiered stage features backdrops by Projection Designers S. Katy Tucker and Kylee Loera who use black & white newsreels of marching troops and battles with headlines – “Ban on Public Assembly”, “Florestan Arrested” and “Free Florestan” – reflecting the tenor of public protests anywhere in the world. In fact, we are not entirely certain where this is taking place though it is highly relatable to oppressive governments both past and present. The vintage film clips reflect shades of Nazi Germany, Peron’s war on the people of Argentina or the Soviet Era under Stalin. Two (live!) German Shepherds suggest Germany, but it could be any repressive government then or now.
Washington National Opera’s production of Fidelio (Photo/Cory Weaver)
The drama revs up when Rocco asks Fidelio to help him dig Florestan’s grave before Don Pizarro’s imminent arrival with plans to murder Florestan. This is the moment when Lenore sees her husband in his cold, dark, dank cell chained to the wall and suffering from starvation. The duets are so beautiful and tender and the situation so dire and urgent that you will easily be swept up in the heart-breaking emotion of it all.
We don’t see megastar Denyce Graves as the kindly Prime Minister until the end when the prisoners are freed, but that doesn’t make it any less of a role. In fact, she was so excited to perform in this opera she revealed, “It will be my first time singing Beethoven, and Fidelio was the first opera I ever saw as a child, which happened to be the Washington National Opera!”
The 37-person Washington National Opera Chorus is lavishly underpinned by 11 supernumeraries and the entire Washington National Opera Orchestra to give this debut an extraordinarily full-throated back up.
If you’re a fan of Beethoven, you won’t want to miss seeing this presentation of his only opera.
Tiffany Choe (Marzelline) and Sahel Salam (Jaquino) (Photo/Cory Weaver)
Conductor Robert Spano; Costume Designer Anita Yavich; Lighting Designer Jane Cox; Dramaturg Kelly Rourke; Assistant Director Amy Hutchison. With Chaźmen Williams Ali as 1st Prisoner and Jim Williams as 2nd Prisoner/Prime Minister’s Assistant.
Through November 4th at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 2700 F Street, NW, Washington, DC 20566. For tickets and information call te box office at 202 467-4600 or visit www.Kennedy-Center.org.