[Tracing the history of the libretto an librettists for Fidelio is a complicated matter. Joseph von Sonnleithner was the first librettist in 1805, with revisions made by Stephan von Breuning in 1806 and the brilliant stage director Georg Friedrich Treitschke in 1814. All three versions were based upon Jean-Nicolas Bouilly's French libretto Léonore, ou L'amour conjugal. The following article concerns this source alone. - NMR]
JEAN-NICOLAS BOUILLY (1793-1842) AND LÉONORE, OU L'AMOUR CONJUGAL
Beethoven's Fidelio was written in a time when the French Revolution and the subsequent Reign of Terror were fresh in everyone's mind. There were many tales of unjust imprisonment and heroic rescues, but Beethoven's immediate source was a libretto by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly, Léonore, ou L'Amour conjugal which was set to music by Pierre Gaveaux in 1798. Years later, in his 1836 autobiography Mes Récapitulations, Bouilly claimed the story was a true one and one in which he had actually participated while he was a judge of the Criminal Tribunal in Tours. However, no records justifying his assertions have ever come to light. Did the events depicted really happen?
Jean-Nicolas Bouilly was born near the city of Tours in the Loire Valley of France on January 24, 1763. He early exhibited a gift for writing but was encouraged to study law and received his law license in Paris in 1787. He practiced briefly but preferred writing for the theatre. Two of his early plays were successful and attracted the attention of Queen Marie Antoinette. He was invited to the literary salon of Madame de Staël. In February1791, however, he left Paris abruptly and returned to Tours. It was a time of turmoil in the capital and many fled to the countryside. Five months later the Royal family made their abortive attempt to flee.
Brought up on the teachings of Rousseau and Montesquieu, Bouilly had liberal ideas on the equality of men, but still supported the idea of a benevolent monarchy. In Tours, he became an active member of the Société des Amis de la Constitution a group formed to try to maintain stability in those turbulent times. Soon he was appointed as one of the administrators of the District of Tours. He still supported the monarchy and, in 1792, proposed asking the National Assembly to form a royal bodyguard to prevent harm to the king. The suggestion failed. (This is the year in which Beethoven moved to Vienna.)
Conditions continued to worsen. There were bread riots in Tours, and men were conscripted to fight the insurgents. The King was in prison and the new regime introduced draconian measures. Suspected dissidents were imprisoned upon the flimsiest of pretexts. Bouilly was made a judge and publicly condemned all kings and royalty. He signed the death warrants for at least five convicted anti-Revolutionists. Had he changed his thinking? He later claimed that, in secret, he was saving the citizens of Tours from the depredations of the extremists. While these claims are unsubstantiated, the actual number of death sentences did decline significantly during his term of office.
The roots of Fidelio are in those times. Robespierre fell in July 1794, and the Reign of Terror was at an end. By 1795, Bouilly had completed the libretto, Léonore, ou l'amour conjugal. He and his family returned to Paris where he was active in the revival of theatre and also became an advisor to the Committee of Public Instruction. He soon persuaded the singer and composer, Pierre Gaveaux, to collaborate with him by composing and producing his libretto as an opera.
The result was a success, and it remained in the répertoire for several years, having its last performance in 1806. However, when Fidelio finally reached Paris twenty years later, Léonore had been largely forgotten.
Bouilly took an active interest in education, helped to organize a new system of primary schools and wrote more than 20 books for young people. One of his plays was about Abbé Sicard who had invented a method of teaching deaf-mutes. The Abbé had been imprisoned, but the play led to his release. Bouilly was now a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, a full-time writer of plays and libretti and an important member of the Paris literary establishment. (He was known as the 'lachrymose poet' because of the sentimental vein in his stories.) It was time to write his memoirs.
According to him, the events depicted in Léonore were absolutely true, and he himself played the role of Don Fernando. He wrote of "... a sublime deed of heroism and devotion by one of the ladies of the Touraine, whose noble efforts I had the happiness of assisting". He thought it advisable to move the events to sixteenth-century Spain and use Spanish names, fearing that the authorities in Tours might recognize some of the characters. But what is the true story?
One possible inspiration was the story of a friend of his, a woman married to a much older man. A police agent in Paris owed the husband money and tried to seduce the wife, but she refused his advances, remaining faithful to her husband. In revenge, the agent later wrote a letter to Tours denouncing the couple as royalists, apparently hoping for their execution. Bouilly was able to prevent this. Was this the germ of Léonore? Did he build up the story in his imagination as years went by? As his ward later wrote of Bouilly: "...the simplest events, transformed themselves for him into scenes and dialogues which soon assumed in his mind the state of reality. He believed everything which he imagined". Possibly his story of wifely devotion and heroism was really a result of Bouilly's tendency to make imaginary happenings real !
For more on Bouilly and his libretto see the article, "Léonore, ou l'amour conjugal: a celebrated offspring of the Revolution", by David Galliver in the book "Music and the French Revolution", Malcolm Boyd, editor. Cambridge University Press, 1992.
The opera by Bouilly and Gaveaux was an opéra-comique with spoken dialogue between musical numbers. Roc, Marceline and Jacquino speak in dialect, and the entire role of Pizare is spoken. At the end Dom Fernand turns to audience and says: "You who applaud Léonore's zeal, patience and daring -- you women, make her your model, and let your happiness consist in fidelity!", a theme sure to appeal to Beethoven. Gaveaux's opera was never shown in Vienna but Beethoven probably knew of it because the score was printed all most at once.
1804 saw the production of Leonora, ossia l'amore conjugale by Ferdinando Paer (1771-1839) which adapted an Italian translation of Bouilly's libretto. It was seen in Dresden and Prague. While Beethoven and Paer were friends, Beethoven may not have known the opera which is very different in feel from his own. It is a comedy with sexual overtones and Leonora is a virtuoso both as to her coloratura and to her tantrums. Fedele is the only prisoner.
Simone Mayr (1763-1845) contributed L'amor conjugale (1805 ), a one-act farsa sentimentale. It takes place in Poland and the characters are given Polish names. It is a comedy and not at all political. Pizarro is motivated by his love for Leonore; Rocco drinks.