When I look back across my entire life, I find no event to place beside this in the impression it produced on me.
— Wagner on seeing a performance of Fidelio
Beethoven was not a facile composer; virtually everything he wrote was accompanied by tremendous, sometimes monumental effort. We can easily see this when we look at existent manuscripts and sketch books from the composer's hand. The surfaces are often covered with erasure marks, cross-hatching, passages hidden by solid ink blots and disconnected notes flying from one end of the page to the other. It often took years for him to complete a symphony, sonata or string quartet, to say nothing of Fidelio which was the result of a twelve-year creative process, at the end of which the composer had still not produced a single, definitive version of the work.
Whether by accident or purposeful calculation, this sense of struggle is communicated in the music of Fidelio to a great degree. Surely all of the classic elements that we recognize as being peculiar to Beethoven are present in the score: heightened emotion, syncopation and heavily accented weak beats, a sense of equality amongst all of the sections of the orchestra, a motivic rather than a melodic approach to musical development and an overall sense of craggy individualism, the singular artist battling against all odds for meaning and understanding. One will find all of these Beethovenian hallmarks in nearly every one of the composer's mature works. These style characteristics were surely enhanced by his gradual deafness, a handicap that must have underscored the sense of isolation that he already experienced due to his unique personality.
But what is remarkable about this opera is that the pervasive sense of struggle exists not only in the orchestral parts but in the vocal lines as well. Writing on the heels of the most elegant shaper of melody in Western Music (Mozart), and parallel to an Italian master of nearly equal skill (Rossini), Beethoven's vocal lines for the characters in Fidelio seem perverse in comparison. So much of the vocal music is angular and 'athletic' in character. Phrases are unwieldy, at times seeming more instrumentally derived and 'anti-vocal'. The cumulative effect is of characters struggling mightily to communicate, singers battling their own limitations and (hopefully!) overcoming all odds in order to emerge victorious. It all works wonderfully well because that's what Fidelio is all about: the triumph of good over evil through selfless acts of steadfast love against all odds.
Within this context of a monumental struggle successfully achieved the shape of Leonora's vocal lines in Abscheulicher! (Abominable man!) and the cruel tessitura of Florestan's Gott! Welch Dunkel hier (God! What darkness here) make logical sense. These are characters struggling against forces that seem stronger than them. At the same time, these are singers who seem to be (and very often are) struggling against musical demands that are very nearly impossible to achieve with any perfection. Intentional or not, Beethoven's vocal style works ideally in order to communicate this story.
Another device that Beethoven uses to tell the story can be seen in the emotional progression of the opera's musical numbers. Beginning with the first vocal piece (the Marzelline/Jacquino duet, Jetzt Schätzchen — Yes, sweetheart), there is a slow progression from light to dark, and back to light again. This emotional development parallels the progression of the story from the relative light of the prison courtyard to the impenetrable darkness of Florestan's dungeon cell to the courtyard of the fortress in the full daytime sun. Compare the orchestral accompaniment of the Marzelline/Jacquino duet to the introduction to Act II and you will hear the difference in tone, color and emotion immediately. Quickly move from there to the final chorus (Wer ein holdes Weib errungen — Who has a fair wife) which ends the work in a blaze of glory and you'll have a quick aural snapshot of the dramatic traversal that this opera encompasses.
Among the many things to listen for in the score, the quartet in Act I, Mir ist so wunderbar (It is so wonderful), is the first truly sublime moment in an opera with many sublime moments! In this quartet, Marzelline, Leonore, Rocco and Jacquino reveal their innermost thoughts. Marzelline speaks of her overwhelming feelings for this stranger, Fidelio; Leonore remarks on her anxiety and the danger that she now finds herself in given Marzelline's feelings; Rocco, the loving father, sees in Fidelio the perfect match for his daughter; and Jacquino despairs that Marzelline will ever love him. All of these disparate feelings are dealt with in a canon which is begun by Marzelline. The tune is 32 bars long and each singer enters after the first eight bars have been sung by the previous singer. The canon breaks down at the 32nd bar after all four singers have entered, and a short coda is provided to finish the piece. The musical structure of the quartet seems remarkable enough in itself, but what is truly extraordinary about it is the fact that Beethoven built the tune itself in such a way that each character's feelings are perfectly described. Marzelline's and Rocco's positive feelings, Leonore's anxiety and Jacquino's despair are all delineated with the utmost sensitivity.
The musical highlights certainly include Leonore's remarkable first act aria, Abscheulicher!, which is cast in the typical Italian double-aria form with a recitative as an introduction, a slow movement (Komm, Hoffnung — Come, hope) and a fast movement to end (Ich folg' dem inner Triebe — I follow an inner drive). This being a German opera, we cannot strictly call these movements cavatina and cabaletta but they are essentially identical to the Italian practice. What is not Italian about this piece is the way the voice is treated, particularly in the final section. The soprano is treated as if she were a member of the orchestra, an oboe or a clarinet! Listen to the wide, ungainly leaps required, the scales and arpeggios that the composer demands at this brisk tempo (Allegro con brio). On top of that the soprano is often expected to sing in competition with the three horns in the orchestra: even with the relative weakness of the horns in Beethoven's orchestra, this was certainly a daunting prospect. But with a little bit of thoughtful listening it becomes clear that Beethoven wants to portray Leonore's monumental struggle through musical means. If that is accepted and understood, the composer certainly hit his mark.
Many critics consider Fidelio a flawed masterpiece, basing their judgment on the unevenness of the dramatic through-line and a superficial glance at the seemingly awkward vocal lines. But in a fine production, well-directed and with excellent singers, Fidelio can be an overwhelming emotional experience and music-drama at its very best.