The opera was the result of a commission in 1803 from Emmanuel Schikaneder (of Magic Flute fame), the impresario of the Theater an der Wien. After abandoning a libretto Schikaneder provided, Beethoven turned to Jean-Nicolas Bouilly’s Léonore ou L’amour conjugal (1794), an opéra comique libretto in two acts, which draws on an incident from the Terror in which a French aristocrat was rescued by his wife. This text was set by several composers before Beethoven and his librettist, Joseph Sonnleithner, reworked it, following the original closely. A vogue for what came to be known as ‘rescue opera’ had developed in Paris after the Revolution.

During 1805, Beethoven tussled with the theatre management at the Theater an der Wien to call his opera Leonore, but to no avail – an opera by Ferdinando Paer on the same subject had been premièred earlier that year. The first performance of Fidelio was on 20 November 1805, played to an audience full of French officers – Napoleon’s army had occupied Vienna the week before. Two subsequent performances were performed to empty houses and an unenthusiastic press, and the opera was dropped. 

Beethoven’s friends urged him to make changes, which he did with great reluctance, and a revised version had its première on 29 March 1806. Despite being under-rehearsed, it enjoyed a more favourable reception. It appears that a cabal in the theatre prevented further performances, and planned stagings in Berlin and Prague fell through. Finally, in 1814, three singers decided to revive it at the Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna for their own benefit. Beethoven agreed on the proviso that he could make changes. This he proceeded to do, complaining: ‘I could compose something new far more quickly than patch up the old … I have to think out the entire work again … this opera will win for me a martyr’s crown.’ With its revised libretto, a more compact musical structure, and a wider universal focus, the opera premièred on 23 May and was followed by performances in Prague. The rest, as they say, is history.

The many substantial changes that Beethoven made during the gestation of the opera have led to what some see as inconsistencies in musical style, in which the first part of the opera appears to belong to the world of eighteenth-century classical domestic comedy, while the second half is very much part of Beethoven’s heroic period. As Paul Robinson has noted: ‘Virtually every critic of the opera feels the need to interpret it, to ask what Fidelio is really about’, owing to a seeming discrepancy between ‘the simple melodramatic story and the overwhelming burden that Beethoven has imposed on it through his music’. This results in ‘the transformation of a simple rescue story into something approaching the myth of universal liberation’.

Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Sydney Opera House

So it is fully within the spirit of the performance history of the opera that Simone Young and the Sydney Symphony have approached the two concert performances by incorporating new spoken text to replace the often awkward original text. Young acknowledges: ‘Even the most dyed-in-the wool, German-speaking Beethoven fanatic would have to admit that the dialogues are spectacularly clunky.’ The opera seems almost to demand a reinterpretation and reimagining for each new production, and the performance contains new text by First Nations author and poet, Tyson Yunkaporta, who saw part of his task as an examination of the notion of idealism:

A nation that has ideals and focuses on human rights still has these dark places … The fact that Australia is a lucky country depends on its first-world status. But that has required the extraction of resources from Aboriginal land, which in turn has required the destruction of Aboriginal communities and their continued control and surveillance. 

This new text does not advance the plot directly, but reflects on the opera and its powerful themes from a contemporary perspective. Within the darkened hall at the beginning of the performance, and at intervals throughout, Virginia Gay declaimed this wide-ranging reflection on culture and politics with authority, often barely suppressed emotion, and warmth. What might at first seem an unnecessary addition to the opera worked extremely well in providing a unifying link between what had become a severely disrupted performance.

Star South African soprano Elza van den Heever was struck down by tonsillitis the day before the performance. Simone Young announced frankly and without embellishment what had occurred in the twenty-four hours before the show. Finding a singer for the role of Leonore is a big ask. In Europe, a few calls to agents would have someone within a few hours, but the SSO solved the problem by having two young sopranos share the role. Rising Australian singer Eleanor Lyons learned the magnificent and challenging Act One aria, ‘Abscheulicher! Wo eilst du hin?’, overnight, and gave a mesmerising performance, revealing a voice of great beauty, power, and iron-clad security throughout the extreme range of the aria. She justly received a resounding ovation from the audience.

Most of the rest of the role was assumed by young New Zealand soprano Madeleine Pierard, who started learning the part on the flight to Sydney! A singer with much promise, she sang with a supple warmth and commitment, fully holding her own with tenor Simon O’Neill as Florestan in the ecstatic Act Two duet, ‘O namenlose Freude’. It was most appropriate that the performance was ‘saved’ by these two young women, both fully in the spirit of the character of Leonore in the opera, who rescues her husband.

Three ensembles were deleted from the performance and replaced by Leonore Overture No. 3. Young commented that she does not personally like doing this, since the Overture basically lays out the story of the opera, but in this case it was probably a good idea.

The rest of the cast was uniformly excellent. New Zealander Simon O’Neill has sung Florestan many times and is one of the world’s most sought-after dramatic tenors, having performed in all the major opera houses. From his plangent cry of ‘Gott, welch Dunkel hier’ in his murderous aria in Act Two, he showed why he commands this role like virtually no other tenor. The voice is large and finely focused, filling the hall with gleaming sound, and he is a powerful stage persona. Equally commanding vocally and in warmth of stage presence was fellow New Zealander, bass baritone Jonathan Lemalu, as Rocco. He was the rock around whom the other characters circulated, and his voice is a rich and sumptuous instrument. 

Displaying appropriate vocal malevolence as the evil Don Pizarro was James Roser; his confrontation with Lemalu was a dramatic high point of the performance. Lightness and verve were provided by Samantha Clarke as Marzelline and Nicholas Jones as Jaquino. Both have attractive voices and personalities ideally suited to their contribution to Beethoven’s multi-faceted score. Sonorous authority and warmth came from Pelham Andrews as Don Fernando, and Louis Hurley and Christopher Hillier provided effective contributions as the two prisoners. 

The Philharmonia Choirs were excellent – the men providing a moving rendition of the ‘Prisoners’ Chorus’ in Act One, and the full chorus achieving a sumptuous sound for the rousing and uplifting finale. The SSO was outstanding throughout, and particularly in an emotionally charged rendition of the Leonore No. 3, receiving a jubilant reception from the audience. Of course, presiding over all was the strong and calming presence of Simone Young, not in the least distracted by all the last-minute trials. This music is in her blood, and she conducts it with absolute authority, deep insight, and great musicality. Let’s hope we hear her in as much opera as possible.

Paul Robinson has observed that Fidelio has ‘come to serve as an all-purpose opera of liberation, performed at the Congress of Vienna to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon and at the opening of the Vienna State Opera after the victory over the Nazis’. A performance in the Semper Oper in Dresden on 7 October 1989, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, saw the audience erupt into wild applause after the Prisoners’ Chorus, all of whom provocatively appeared in street clothes. One month later, the Berlin Wall fell.

In this vein, one of the most striking recent performances of the opera took place on Robben Island in South Africa in 2004 to celebrate ten years of democracy, some fourteen years after the release of Nelson Mandela. The parallels with Mandela’s long incarceration on the notorious island prison, and the efforts of his often highly controversial wife Winnie, were obvious. The performance, filmed for television, and freely available on YouTube, was interspersed with extracts from Mandela’s speeches. With all the history and emotion accompanying such an event, it was a deeply moving performance, heartbreakingly so during the Prisoners’ Chorus as the prisoners moved into the sunlight. Particularly outstanding was the Leonore of the late Elizabeth Connell, well known to Australian audiences. 

Fidelio is an opera that never fails to move one, regardless of the context and quality of the performance, and Simone Young with the forces of the SSO were no exception. What might have been a messy, cobbled-together, last-minute presentation turned out to be a musical triumph, leaving an exhilarated and deeply satisfied audience, while renewing one’s faith in music to conquer adversity.

Fidelio (Sydney Symphony Orchestra) will be repeated at the Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House on 26 November 2022. Performance attended: 24 November.