Premiered at Vienna’s Kärntnertor Theater on 23 May 1814, the final version of Fidelio is a fundamentally different opera from the 1805 original. There is now much less emphasis on the gaoler’s daughter Marzelline and her world of Singspiel domesticity. Although the fate of Florestan and Leonore remains central, the individual characterization becomes more idealized and stereotyped. The human ...
Symphony No. 1. There were earlier versions of the contrabassoon, however, which can be heard in Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749) and Ludwig van Beethoven’s (1770–1827) Fidelio (1805). Introduction | Woodwind Instruments Instruments | Crumhorn | Woodwind ...
1918–2005 Swedish soprano Nilsson made her debut as Agathe (Der Freischütz) in Stockholm in 1946. She sang many German and Italian roles there before her Glyndebourne debut as Mozart’s Elettra (Idomeneo) in 1951. In the 1950s she became known as a Wagner specialist, singing regularly at Bayreuth 1957–70. She frequently appeared at Covent Garden from 1957, singing Turandot, ...
1810–49, German Although Otto Nicolai was born in Kaliningrad, northwest of Moscow, he is classed as a German composer. Between 1833 and 1836, Nicolai was organist at the Prussian Chapel in Rome where he became fascinated with opera. His first work for the opera stage, Enrico II (‘Henry II’, 1839) was enthusiastically received in Trieste. Best ...
C-sharp, half a tone higher. Among varied roles, Tamberlik sang Rossini’s Otello, Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Florestan, Leonore’s imprisoned husband, in Beethoven’s Fidelio (1814) and the title roles in Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini and Gounod’s Faust. Tamberlik retired around 1882. Settled in Madrid, he became an arms manufacturer. Introduction | High Romantic | ...
b. 1926 Canadian tenor Vickers joined the Covent Garden company in 1957, singing Verdi’s Gustavus and Berlioz’s Aeneas. In 1958 he sang the title-role in the Giulini-Visconti production of Don Carlos, and Siegmund at Bayreuth, followed by Jason in Cherubini’s Medea in Dallas. He sang Siegmund and three other roles in Vienna in 1959. He made his Metropolitan ...
1895–1962, Norwegian Flagstad began her career singing at Stockholm Opera. She was considering retirement in 1932 when singing the role of Isolde in Oslo, but after her appearance at Bayreuth the following year, her success was immediate; she made her Met debut in 1935 at the age of 40. Following a series of triumphs, Flagstad returned to ...
the dedication. Beethoven was a vociferous opponent of all forms of tyranny and in 1804–05 he wrote an opera on the subject. Known at first as Leonore but later as Fidelio, it deals with a man’s wrongful imprisonment and rescue by his wife. It was first performed in November 1805, but Napoleon had just invaded Vienna, and the ...
incident in the author’s native Tours. Beethoven came across this libretto at the end of 1803 and gave it to the Viennese court secretary Joseph Sonnleithner to rework in German. Fidelio – the title was changed, apparently against Beethoven’s wishes, to avoid confusion with operas by Pierre Gaveaux (1798) and Ferdinando Paer (1804) – finally saw the stage on ...
(O’-to Ne’-ko-li) 1810–49 German composer Nicolai studied in Berlin with Zelter, and in 1833 became organist at the embassy chapel in Rome, but he resigned in 1836 to pursue a career as an opera composer. He quickly found fame with Enrico II (‘Henry II’, 1839) and Il templario (The Templar’, 1840), and also made an impression as a conductor in ...
1785–1838, Austrian This Austrian soprano studied in Vienna with Antonio Salieri. In 1803, she made her debut in Vienna as Juno in Der Spiegel von Arkadien (‘The Mirror of Arcadia’, 1794) by Franz Xaver Süssmayr (1766–1803), a one-time pupil of Mozart. In 1805 Milder-Hauptmann created the role of Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio. She was, however, dissatisfied with ...
b. 1935 German tenor Schreier made his debut as the First Prisoner in Fidelio (Dresden, 1961), before joining the Berlin State Opera. On the death of Fritz Wunderlich in 1966, he became the best-known exponent of Mozart’s Belmonte, Don Ottavio, Ferrando and Tamino (The Magic Flute), the part with which he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in ...
1804–60, German Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient was born into ‘show business’. Her father was Friedrich Schröder (1744–1816), the first German Don Giovanni in Mozart’s opera of that name, and her mother was the ‘Mrs Siddons of Germany’, the actress Sophie Bürger (1781–1868). Wilhelmine was a child actress and ballet dancer before making her debut at the Kärnterthortheater in Vienna as Pamina ...
Mozart was, with Handel, the composer Beethoven revered above all others. And Fidelio could hardly have been written without the example of Mozart’s mature operas. Yet with his strongly ethical, idealistic outlook, even to the point of priggishness, Beethoven regarded works such as Don Giovanni (1787) and, especially, Così fan tutte (1790) as flippant ...
project as a personal mission. Making all the important artistic decisions, he mounted both old and new works that eschewed a naturalistic production style. His first bold experiment, Fidelio, was a critical failure, but he followed with a Stravinsky triple bill – Mavra, Oedipus Rex and Petrushka – before operas by Hindemith, Schoenberg and Weill ...
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