Search - Ludwig van Beethoven, John Eliot Gardiner, Hillevi Martinpelto :: Beethoven - Leonore / Martinpelto · Oelze · Begley · M. Best · A. Miles · Hawlata · Shade - Gardiner

Beethoven's only opera underwent three incarnations and a name change. Written in 1804-05, its premiere was a disaster due to Napoleon's invasion of Austria and the aristocracy's flight from Vienna. Revived in 1806, drastically cut and revised, it was more successful, but did not triumph until 1814, considerably rewritten and renamed Fidelio. This is the first, all too rarely heard version, whose neglect can be explained by its slow pace and lack of dramatic thrust and narrative cohesion. In his revisions, Beethoven remedied this not only by sacrificing, or altering, ravishingly beautiful music, but by projecting a more spontaneous emotional response to the story than the opera's final version. This recording uses an excellent orchestra of period instruments, creating remarkable clarity of texture; like the premiere, it opens with the Leonore No. 2 Overture. The singing is wonderful throughout, though Leonore sounds a little tame for the dauntless heroine. Instead of the spoken dialogue, a German actor functions as narrator; unfortunately his text, with quotes from contemporary poetry, is cast in such florid, inflated language that it obscures rather than elucidates the action. --Edith Eisler