FIDELIO

Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven. Libretto by Joseph Sonnleithner with revisions by Georg Friedrich Treitschke after Jean-Nicolas Bouilly's libretto Léonore, ou L'Amour conjugal.

Opera in two acts (1814)

Co-production with the English National Opera
recommended from 16 years

In German with German and English surtitles

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?
Dressed as a man, Leonore gains the trust of the jailer Rocco and his daughter Marzelline under the name Fidelio. She gains access to the high-security wing where her husband Florestan is being arbitrarily detained by Don Pizzaro in order to free him. An opera about freedom and justice as well as the fears and limitations of human existence.

Beethoven had many plans for operatic compositions, but in the end he only realized one project: in a creative and reworking process lasting decades, the French original, the rescue opera Leonore oder die eheliche Treue by composer Pierre Gaveaux and librettist Jean Nicolas Bouilly, which is based on a true story from the revolutionary era, became Beethoven's only completed opera Fidelio - a musical crossing of the boundaries between singspiel and theatrical symphony.

Please note that there will be a stroboscopic effect on stage at the beginning of the performance.