Guillotines Strike Terror in $­­­6.3 Million `Fidelio': Review

Review by Shirley Apthorp

April 8 (Bloomberg) -- These grubby prisoners sing of freedom, yet you can tell that it isn't going to happen. Claudio Abbado forces the tempo forward as ``Fidelio'' nears its denouement, introducing a note of hysteria to the final chorus.

This is Abbado's first-ever ``Fidelio,'' the 74-year-old maestro's late arrival at Beethoven's only opera. The premiere Sunday brought a rush of excitement to Reggio Emilia, the northern Italian town where Abbado's son is artistic director of the opera. With the Mahler Chamber Orchestra in the pit and a starry cast, this 4 million euro ($­­­6.3 million) production is a musical event, poised to tour Europe in a series of brief, exclusive airings.

Originally, another stage director was planned. Then Abbado saw the 2006 film ``Four Minutes,'' about the turbulent relationship between a young pianist prisoner and her teacher, and instead picked its director, Chris Kraus.

Kraus had never seen an opera before, and it shows. Staging operas is a craft that must be learned, a fact too often forgotten in today's eagerness to broaden the genre's appeal. Like so many newcomers, Kraus unconsciously mimics all the most obvious opera cliches. Still, he has thought about who these people are and what the story is really about, and both those things are big plusses.

Hence the guillotine. Kraus has moved the setting from Seville to Paris of the French Revolution. He revels in the domesticity of this family of prison warders, keeping house around the instruments of death. We meet Marzelline and Jaquino washing and dusting the planks of their trusty beheading device.

Brutal Drama

Fidelio enters lugging a bright new blade. In the background, guards shackle death-row convicts with casual brutality. With admirably spare eloquence, Kraus never lets us forget that this is a drama played out beneath the ever-present shadow of violent death in a climate of political corruption.

While Abbado subverts Beethoven's ostensibly happy end aurally, Kraus does the same thing dramatically. Florestan, freed from unjust imprisonment and reunited with his formerly cross- dressing wife ``Fidelio'' (Leonore), assumes the disgraced Pizarro's governorship, and the recently freed prisoners are herded back to face the guillotines' terror. Marzelline, who loved Fidelio when she thought she was a he, looks suitably offended by it all.

Of course, however careful the characterization and however cinematic the lighting, the point of this ``Fidelio'' was never going to be the staging. Nor, for that matter, was it going to be the singing, although an admirable cast has been assembled.

The point was always going to be Abbado, a conductor who now only appears in public when he really wants to, lending a shimmer of rare allure to whatever he does.

Lyrical Lines

It also means he has thought minutely about the score, so that every note gains an all-or-nothing immediacy. Abbado's ``Fidelio'' has a pared-down urgency that keeps the action hurtling forward throughout. He conducts the 1814 version of Beethoven's score with transparent clarity, banning vibrato from the orchestra pit, infusing his work with historical knowledge. The lyricism is breathtaking, long lines spun of such organic flexibility that every note breathes like a human being.

Beneath it, Abbado lets us hear a bleak, raw darkness, shades of mortal terror and awful deeds. The orchestra plays with flawless intonation, crisp precision and boundless energy, and the Arnold Schonberg Choir adds a further touch of aural luxury.

Julia Kleiter's Marzelline is the discovery of the production, with a sweet, round, consummately musical account of the role. Giorgio Surjan lends color and detail to the groveling part of jailer Rocco, Jorg Schneider's Jaquino sounds effortless and likeable, while Clifton Forbis attacks the murderously high passages that Florestan has to sing with gritty determination and Anja Kampe's Leonore is robust and direct.

This is consummate musical excellence. Catch a performance if you possibly can.

``Fidelio'' is a co-production of I Teatri di Reggio Emilia, Teatro Real de Madrid, Creation date : 10/04/2008 @ 12:29
Last update : 10/04/2008 @ 12:40
Category : Abbado in the media
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