Fidelio Visual Album available now on Apple Music

In celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday we present a brand new Fidelio version as an Apple Music Visual Album.

2020 sees the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth and as such is a highly suitable time to stage his only opera. A work of characteristically far-sighted vision, Fidelio’s philosophic ambition and seriousness looks forward to the music dramas of Wagner while anticipating Verdi’s preoccupation with the collisions of ethics and politics, of love and power. Perhaps even more significantly, the climactic image of Leonore aiming a pistol at the vicious Pizarro (which inspired a youthful Wagner to write opera) remains a strikingly modern vision of female agency – in an art form not blessed with many similar examples.

Fidelio is a masterpiece, an uplifting story of risk and triumph. In this new production, conducted by Antonio Pappano, David Butt Philip plays the political prisoner Florestan, and Lise Davidsen his wife Leonore (disguised as “Fidelio”) who daringly sets out to rescue him. Set in strong counterpoint are the ingredients of domestic intrigue, determined love and the cruelty of an oppressive regime. The music is transcendent throughout and includes the famous Act I Quartet, the Prisoners’ Chorus and Florestan’s impassioned Act II cry in the darkness and vision of hope. Tobias Kratzer’s new staging brings together the dark reality of the French Revolutionary “Terror” and our own time to illuminate Fidelio’s inspiring message.

Genre Opera
Production year 2020
Recording location The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Conductor Antonio Pappano
Stage Director Tobias Kratzer
Soloist Lise Davidsen
Soloist David Butt Philip