Beethoven was living at the Theater an der Wien when he began work on Fidelio in 1804 and, although he had other commissions, devoted himself almost full-time to the opera. He produced at least 436 pages of sketches and changed Florestan's aria 18 times. The opera was ready for rehearsal in the autumn of 1805 but there were censor troubles. For one thing, they objected that the end of the opera was too much like the fall of the Bastille. Sonnleithner protested, pointing out that Paër's versionhad already been given in Dresden, and that it was set in sixteenth-century Spain. The censors were finally convinced when they learned the Empress admired the story.They approved the operas after "the alteration of the more lurid scenes".
Although Beethoven strongly objected, the theatre management insisted on changing the name from Leonore to Fidelio. They were afraid it might be confused with the other Leonores by Paër and Mayr. Overly long, the November 20, 1805 opening was not a success, and it could not have come out at a worse time. Napoleon's forces had recently occupied Vienna; other than a few of Beethoven's friends, most of the audience consisted of French officers who did not understand German. (The Court had abandoned Vienna.) The press was unenthusiastic, and Beethoven withdrew it after three performances.
Revisions were made by Stephen von Breuning, and the new version produced five months later was fairly well received. The second Act I chorus was added for this version. However, a quarrel with von Braun, the director of the theatre, induced Beethoven to withdraw it.
May 23, 1814 saw the opening of what was to become the definitive version of Fidelio at the Theater am Kärnthnerthor. Beethoven had added music so that it was less of a Singspiel. Not only was it much improved, but it benefitted from Napoleon's defeat -- he had abdicated and been sent to Elba in April of that year. It was the first opera given before the delegates to the Congress of Vienna (1814-15) and it soon appeared in many German cities and in Prague. Eight years later the very young Wilhelmine Schröder sang the role and was a sensation. Its fame spread and, in 1832, it was given in Paris (in French) and in England (in German). It was given again in England in 1835 (in English) and yet again in 1851 with the dialog in Italian! It came to New York's Park Theatre in English in 1839 and to the Metropolitan Opera in 1884.
As a footnote: Beethoven had been impressed by the story of another Leonore who acted as a soldier in the wars of Neapolitan liberation and, in 1814, he composed incidental music for a play on her story, Eleonore Prohaska, by Friedrich Duncker
On his deathbed Beethoven presented the manuscript for Fidelio to Anton Schindler saying, "Of all my children, this is the one that cost me the worst birth-pangs, the one that brought me the most sorrow; and for that reason it is the one most dear to me".
A NOTE ON THE OVERTURES.
There are four overtures associated with Fidelio. The so-called
Leonore #1 was used only a few times in later productions. The 1805 performance
opened with Leonore #2. Leonore #3 was composed for the 1806 version.
Finally a new Fidelio overture premiered with the 1814 production.
In most modern productions it is the practice to start with Fidelio and use Leonore #3 as a later interlude, a custom usually credited to Mahler. When the current San Diego Opera production was used in San Francisco, Leonore #3 was used before the opera, and there was no later interlude.
MODERN PERFORMANCES
Almost from its inception, Fidelio has been taken as symbol of
freedom and release from oppression. As a consequence, although the original
was set in sixteenth-century Spain, it has since been moved to many different
times and locales. San Diego's (originally San Francisco's) version is set during
Beethoven's time.
Some people have objected to the spoken dialogue and set it to music. An 1851 version by Balfe became the standard such for decades.
Some examples of recent versions:
A Peter Hall 1979 production took place behind was apparently a prison farm. Rocco cultivated his vegetables and Marzelline hung out washing.
During a scene change in a 1980 English National Opera production, Rocco climbed a ladder on the auditorium wall to remind the audience that not all prisoners would be released.
Kupfer, in 1981, used a concentration camp version complete with searchlights. In the final scene Leonore, Florestan and the prisoners were removed and there was a tableau with Socrates, Che Guevara, Jesus, members of the PLO, and other "revolutionaries"who emerged from the sculpture Marseillaise on Paris's Arc de Triomphe. At the end, only Pizarro was left onstage with two coffins, presumably those of Leonore and Florestan.
The last production in San Diego took place in a Latin American banana republic. At the end, the townspeople waved small American flags after they were released by the American soldiers.
In a recent performance in Antwerp, Jaquino monitored the prisoners with a video and Marzelline was also a guard. This led to a number of anachronisms. Pizzaro still recognized the handwriting on dispatches and tried to use a knife on Florestan..
Fidelio was seen as particularly significant during and after World War II. It was shown in Salzburg just before the Nazis entered the city. During the war, the conductors Furtwängler and Karajan remained in Germany and both conducted the opera. Thomas Mann said that Fidelio under the Nazis was an obscenity, but Furtwängler replied, "Fidelio never has been presented in the Germany of Himmler, only in a Germany raped by Himmler".
Fidelio was especially significant in Vienna after the war. The Vienna State Opera House had been destroyed, but the Vienna State Opera company produced it on October 6, 1945 at the Theater and der Wien, the house where it had premiered. One of Austria's priorities was the reconstruction of the Opera House. In spite of the country's poverty, the government spent some 10 million dollars to rebuild the bombed-out building. Its reopening was a cause for rejoicing throughout the country; Karl Böhm led the orchestra in a gala performance of Fidelio; the house was sold out and thousands waited all afternoon outside for a chance to listen to the music on loudspeakers. There were few dry eyes that evening, and the Viennese tell of miracles happening during the performance.