FIDELIO (Opera North/Leeds Town Hall)****

 

By Tommy

Link: https://ondemand.operanorth.co.uk/productions/fidelio-2020 £15

Available until: On demand till Saturday 19^th December at midnight.

Fidelio might seem like a surprising choice of opera for the Christmas season, but it could be considered extremely apt for the times in which we are currently living. A husband and wife, Leonore and Florestan, are enduring a long separation. Florestan is in almost complete isolation from the world, with limited contact with his jailers. Leonore, disguised as a boy named Fidelio, is taking on another role which is completely alien to her in order to survive a difficult time.

FIDELIO (Royal Opera)****

 

By Megan

Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000l9rq/beethovens-fidelio-the-royal-opera

Available until: July 2021

Beethoven only wrote one opera but he worked really hard on it. There are three slightly different versions of the opera and four different overtures. Some of the music was written for a different opera which Beethoven didn’t finish. The overtures are played quite often in concerts by orchestras and sometimes Leonore Overture 3 is played in the second act but nearly all the performances are of the last version of the opera. There is a really good recording of the first opera which is conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner but I have never heard the second one.