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This review is reprinted with the permission of Michael Anthony, of the Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN. It was chosen for reprint in Operanotes to celebrate the continued success of NY soprano, Arianna Zukerman, about whom the author, when asked for permission to reprint this review stated "If I hadn't been running out of space would have written more about her. She certainly did more with that role than most sopranos do." Brava Ms. Zukerman.
Review: 'Fidelio' fine end to Sommerfest
Michael Anthony
Star Tribune
Published August 2, 2004
It has been said of Beethoven's only opera, "Fidelio," that it is one of the few pieces of music that can send the listener away wishing he were a better person.
This idealistic ode to liberty, which ends in the freeing of innocent political prisoners, meant a great deal to Viennese audiences in 1814, when the final version of the work was premiered, given the fact that Napoleon's occupation of the city had just been brought to an end. And it can mean a lot to us today, when reports of illegally-held prisoners, whether in Iraq or Guantanamo Bay, have filled the news in recent months.
Even so, "Fidelio" is a problematical work, and those problems were hardly laid to rest in the lively concert version of the opera that Andrew Litton conducted before an enthusiastic, capacity crowd Saturday night at Orchestra Hall, the finale of the Minnesota Orchestra's Sommerfest. First of all, the opera is a hybrid of styles: a lighthearted Singspiel in the initial scenes - what we would call musical comedy today - followed by a second act that suddenly gets serious, rising majestically to a choral finale that is opera on the grandest scale.
In theory, a concert version offers fewer hurdles. Since there is no action onstage, the music is the focus, the carrier of the drama. And, happily, the orchestra, playing at the top of its form Saturday night, had engaged some very fine singing actors for this performance, as well as the always accomplished Minnesota Chorale. The recitatives were cut to a minimum, which was wise, since the drama seemed to stop dead when the singers read their dialogue to each other. The performance was in German with English surtitles (Litton's own adaptation) projected above the stage. Litton also observed the old tradition, credited to Gustave Mahler at the Vienna Opera, of interpolating the "Leonore" Overture No. 3 right before the final scene, which makes that final scene seem prosaic, if not anticlimactic. Moreover, the initial reason for that interpolation - to change the sets - disappears in a concert version.
Given these considerable limitations, this was an impressive performance, one highlighted by commanding, fervent singing from the evening's Florestan, tenor Clifton Forbis, and the Leonore, soprano Christine Brewer.
On the other hand, surely, there must have been a better way to introduce Florestan at the start of Act 2 than to have him limp slowly to center-stage - he's supposed to be chained to a wall. (Couldn't he have just been seated on stage when the act starts?) But when Forbis opened up on his first word, "Gott," starting softly and letting the sound expand till it filled the hall, it was clear that this was going to be a special Florestan, one of Wagnerian proportion, at least vocally. There was both sweetness and strength in Florestan's character, if not always a great deal of dynamic subtlety, along with a genuinely heroic ring in his top register. His "rescuer," Brewer, has a voice with that same kind of vocal heft. She is a true dramatic soprano with a touch of steel in her tone that enhances this character's resolve. Brewer's voice tended to lose some of its natural warmth when forced above the treble staff, but she hit the high B at the end of "Abscheulicher" square on pitch.
The rest of the cast was strong, too, starting with Arianna Zukerman's charming Marzelline, which offered a bigger voice than we usually hear in this role. The remaining accomplished singers were Stanford Olsen (Jaquino), Donnie Ray Albert (the villainous Pizzaro, Jochen Schmeckenbecher (Fernando), Raymond Aceto (Rocco) and two singers from the chorus, Brian Ohnsorg and Aaron Larson.
Litton, the festival's artistic director who has been a dynamo of energy and good ideas these past few weeks, proved to be the unerring captain of the ship Saturday night, capturing both the lyric flow and the heroic scale of Beethoven's score.
Michael Anthony is at
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