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These pages contain program notes written for Redwood
Symphony. You are free to use the information in your own program
notes. If you quote me directly, please attribute it. Thanks!
These notes were edited, amended, and otherwise
improved by Eric Kujawsky, Peter Stahl, and others.
Barbara Heninger
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Beethoven
Fidelio Overture
Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio, seems to have been born under an
unlucky star. The first version, titled Leonore after the opera's
heroine, premiered at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on November 20, 1805,
only seven days after Napoleon's army had entered the city. Those who normally
would have attended had left the city, and any French soldiers in the audience
probably saw subversion in the opera's theme of man's struggle for liberty
against tyranny. The opera closed after three performances.
Beethoven revised and shortened the work, and a revival of Leonore was staged
in 1806 that was met more favorably. However, this time it was withdrawn from
performance because Beethoven suspected the theatre management was not paying
him his fair share of the receipts. Eight years later, with Napoleon's army
suffering defeats and the Viennese feeling pluckier about tweaking tyrants,
Beethoven revised the opera yet again. It premiered at the Kärtnertortheater in
Vienna on May 23, 1814, under the new title Fidelio, the name the
disguised Leonore uses while helping her political prisoner husband to escape
from jail. It was a success both in the eyes of the public and, perhaps more
importantly, to Beethoven himself. Of its difficult gestation, the composer
wrote, "Of all my children, this is the one that cost me the worst birth pangs,
the one that brought me the most sorrow; and for that reason it is the most dear
to me."
Along with his three versions of the opera, Beethoven composed four versions
of the overture: one for each of the performances, plus one believed to have
been written for a planned performance of the second Leonore in Prague that
never took place. The Fidelio Overture (Opus 72b) was his final
version.
The earlier overtures quoted sections of the opera, and the second in
particular was a bit of a 'spoiler,' using much material from the second act
climax. In contrast, this final version does not use any themes from the opera,
instead juxtaposing a heroic first theme (introduced by the horns and woodwinds)
with a brighter, forceful second theme for horn and strings. The growing sense
of tension as the soulful main theme continually segues into more vigorous
passages sets the stage for the heroic struggles of the lovely Leonore to rescue
her beloved Florestan.
Sept. 27, 2008
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