Fidelio Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

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- Beethoven, Ludwig van Beethoven, Musicology, History of Music; opera, Fidelio
- by ILIAS CHRISSOCHOIDIS
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- Opera, Beethoven, Fidelio

ABSTRACT. Wie es aus dem Beitragstitel hervorgeht, wird im folgenden über Ferdinand Hillers Dirigententätigkeit während seines Parisaufenthaltes behandelt. Hierbei wird sich nachvollziehen lassen, dass der gefeierte Orchesterleiter als Operndirigent vergleichsweise wenig erfolgreich war. Im Jahre 1851 wird Ferdinand Hiller für drei Jahre vom Direktor und Unternehmer Benjamin Lumley als Dirigent und künstlerischer Leiter des Théâtre-Italien in Paris und des Her Majesty’s Theatre in London angestellt. Seine Tätigkeit wird sich jedoch auf die Leitung des einzigen Pariser Theaters während der Spielzeit 1851-1852 beschränken. Nach einer Vorstellung der Laufbahn und der Einstellung des deutschen Dirigenten vor dem Antritt seines Amtes, wenden wir uns zunächst Lumleys zweifacher Leitung, Hillers Ernennung und seinen Befugnissen zu. Dann werden das Ensemble des Théâtre-Italien, der Spielplan der Spielzeit 1851-1852 und die erste Aufführung von Beethovens Fidelio, die einzige Neuheit der Spielzeit, betrachtet. Schlieβlich werden die Ursachen und die Folgen von Lumleys Bankrott analysiert. Diese Untersuchung stützt sich hauptsächlich auf die gründliche Durchsicht der Sammlungen AJ/13 und F/21 der Archives Nationales in Paris, was das Théâtre-Italien während dieser Spielzeit betrifft, auf Hillers Vierzehn Tage in Paris genannten Bericht von 1851, der erst 1868 veröffentlicht wurde, auf den ersten Band aus Hillers Briefwechsel, der 1958 von Reinhold Sietz herausgegeben wurde, auf die 1864 veröffentlichten Lumleys Memoiren und auf das Durchsehen folgender Zeitschriften: La Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, Le Ménestrel, Le Journal des Débats und die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.

У овом раду заступам тезу да Фиделио није опера о Француској револуцији, већ лични коментар Лудвига ван Бетовена на Француску револуцију. Иако се ово дело показало делотворним у подстицању слободарских порива у разним историјским епохама, сматрам да га то ипак не чини " опером Француске револуције " , односно да призивање или слављење револуције ипак није главни морални циљ Фиделија. У раду указујем на могућност да је Бетовен желео да укаже на то да постоји други, моралнији начин досезања слободе, него што је насиље које је пратило Француску револуцију и Наполеонове ратне походе. Тај " други пут " може да се открије разматрањем Бетовеновог односа према филозофској дебати о узвишеном, која је пресудно обележила интелектуалну мисао с краја XVIII и почетка XIX века, у време када је Бетовенова уметничка личност сазревала под притиском личних и друштвених околности. / In this paper I claim that Fidelio is not an opera about the French Revolution, but rather Ludwig van Beethoven’s personal reflection on the Revolution. Although his only opera has proven its potential to inspire freedom fighters andliberation movements, I believe that this fact still does not make Fidelio “the opera of the French Revolution” and that invocation or celebration of the Revolution is not the primary moral of the opera.Analyses of the opera’s dramaturgy carried out by various eminent researchers with the goal of showing that Fidelio does or does not portray the French Revolution show that there is no single meaning of this work, but critics nevertheless agree that the “real topic” of this opera must go way beyond the apparent simplicity of the “rescue opera” plot, given the time and effort Beethoven consecrated to the completion and revisions of his only essay in this genre.
Here I present the possibility that Beethoven wanted to show that there was another, more ethical way to freedom than the radical violence which characterized French Revolution and subsequent Napoleon’s war conquests. This “other way” can be traced if one focuses on Beethoven’s relationship towards the philosophical debate about the sublime which shaped decisively the intellectual thought at the turn of the 18th and 19th Centuries, at the time when Beethoven’s artistic personality matured under the dictate of his personal and social circumstances.

When Beethoven revised Fidelio for a final time in 1814, he was in the midst of a fundamental rethinking of his relationship with audiences. “That one certainly writes more beautifully as soon as one writes for the audience is for certain,” he wrote in his Tagebuch in 1813, at the cusp of a series of works intended to speak directly to the broadest variety of listeners: Wellingtons Sieg, incidental music for patriotic plays, and the cantata Der glorreiche Augenblick. Modern critics of this populist turn often draw a bright line between these works and Fidelio, viewing the former as uninspired ephemera and the latter as of universal value. Such criticism is frequently framed in moralistic terms: by casting the net wider than usual, Beethoven sold out his ethics for financial gain and political favor, effectively legitimizing the power of the sovereigns who gathered at the Congress of Vienna.
Just as historians have recently begun to take a more nuanced view of the dynamics between social classes during the Congress, some current re-evaluations of Beethoven’s political works have suggested greater continuity with the composer’s usual artistic and humanistic objectives than once recognized. Nicholas Cook has shown how Wellingtons Sieg and Der glorreiche Augenblick enacted community among a pan-European audience. Esteban Buch and Nicholas Mathew have drawn attention to the parallels between the political imagery of these and the late choral masterpieces. I have previously detailed the novel expressive and organizational strategies Beethoven employs in Der glorreiche Augenblick as a response to a changing conception of his audience.
In the current paper, I explore how Beethoven navigates the divide between the different factions of the audience in the 1814 revisions to Fidelio’s finale. An announcement in the Friedensblätter describes pointedly how both the “Friends of Art” and “Beethoven’s admirers” were in full agreement over the opera’s abilities to inspire popular success “without failing to fulfill the slightest demands of posterity.” By highlighting the popular features that Fidelio has in common with the more overtly political works of 1813-1815, drawing from sketch material that attests to a creative engagement with issues raised by writing vocal music in a “popular style,” as well as integrating current sociological perspectives into the Vienna Congress, I demonstrate how this announcement accurately summarizes Beethoven’s crystal-clear understanding of his 1814 listeners and their concerns.

- by John D . Wilson
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- Audience Studies, Beethoven, Fidelio, Congress of Vienna

Über Ästhetik und Geschichte der Einspielungen von Beethovens Oper Fidelio

- by Martin Elste
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- Musicology, Beethoven, Classical Music, Ludwig van Beethoven

La messinscena di Fidelio, spettacolo inaugurale della stagione operistica 2014-15 del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, ha generato, come accade immancabilmente, polemiche e valutazioni discordi. In vero, se il giudizio sulla direzione di Daniel Barenboim (all’ultima prova da direttore artistico) è stato quasi unanimemente positivo, maggiori perplessità hanno suscitato le anacronistiche deviazioni della regista Deborah Warner. Va detto che complessivamente i dissensi sono stati piuttosto contenuti, forse per la limitata familiarità di pubblico e critica con un testo che non appartiene al grande repertorio operistico italiano né ha alle spalle una solidissima tradizione sui nostri palcoscenici. Nondimeno, alcuni allestimenti recenti di Fidelio (quasi tutti piazzati in apertura di stagione, forse proprio per la nobiltà eroica, ispiratrice e – perché no? – benaugurale dell’opera beethoveniana) consentono di riflettere sulle peculiari componenti scenografiche insite nell’opera e sulle loro possibili varianti, se è vero che, come segnalava a suo tempo Sergio Sablich, «Fidelio non è un’opera di regia, ma semmai di scenografia: di una scenografia nella quale sia già contenuta un’idea registica».

- by Arabeschi Rivista
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- Opera, Ludwig van Beethoven, Fidelio, Scenografia