A 'Fidelio' for all audiences efficiently opens the OCNE season | Culture | EUROtoday

Few have defined so clearly the primary drawback of Fideliothe one opera by Ludwig van Beethoven, like his colleague Hector Berlioz. From the pages of the Journal of Debatesand after attending a manufacturing on the Parisian Théâtre Lyrique in 1860, the French composer criticised the “chastity of its melody” and the “disdain for theatrical effects”. However, he praised the “opulent sobriety of its instrumentation” and the “audacity of its harmony”. He additionally pressured the significance of listening rigorously to the orchestra, as its devices “sometimes contain the expressive accent, the cry of passion and the idea that the composer could not give to the vocal part”.

Therefore, programming it in a live performance model with a slight scenic embellishment is normally a good suggestion. And that is what David Afkham, inventive and musical director of the National Orchestra and Choir of Spain (OCNE), understood to open the 2024/25 season on the National Auditorium. Despite the rigidity of its motion, the cumbersome dramaturgy and the mishmash of operatic kinds linked to the Singspielwith spoken dialogue and sung musical numbers, this rating is nothing wanting formidable. A development that spans each the previous and the long run, because it begins with the home woes of the playful drama by Mozart and anticipates, on the finish, the common embrace of the Ninth Symphonythough it additionally pronounces what Weber and the primary Wagner will probably be.

The matter of Fidelio has not misplaced an iota of relevance. His defence of freedom within the face of oppression is unfortunately nonetheless very a lot alive. It is not any coincidence that this live performance has been used to open the thematic cycle of War and freedom of this season. It can also be an opera that presents a girl who defeats the tyrant and frees her husband, in contrast to so many different titles that symbolize the defeat of ladies (paraphrasing Catherine Clément and her feminist Opera or the defeat of ladies). Leonora takes on your entire motion of the opera, whether or not disguised as Fidelio, the jailer Rocco's assistant, or when she reveals her true identification as Florestan's spouse, in the intervening time when he was to be executed by Pizarro, the governor of the Seville jail the place the motion takes place within the 18th century.

The stage director and playwright Helena Pimenta has made an awesome didactic effort in her semi-stage proposal. Replacing all of the dialogues with an excellent script in Spanish, for an actor who narrates, provides voice and interacts with the protagonists, makes it simpler for the viewers to observe, regardless of having glorious subtitles in German and Spanish. However, her proposal additionally has drawbacks. Although it facilitates the event of the primary act, by which the dialogues are extreme, it additionally reduces the characters to stereotypes that sing and gesticulate. In addition, the obsession with placing this script earlier than the music often forces the actor Joaquín Notario, whose efficiency was irreproachable, to superimpose his amplified voice over Beethoven's music. Otherwise, the straightforward props and costumes, black with purple trim, contribute little or no and make errors, resembling protecting Florestán blindfolded in the intervening time when Pizarro asks him to take a look at him earlier than killing him.

The vocal solid was competent, although not memorable. It consisted of eminently lyrical voices, such because the Australian soprano Eleanor Lyons, who made her debut as Leonora. An glorious singer with a pretty tone, adequate quantity and good excessive notes, as she demonstrated in her aria within the first act. ¡Disgusting!however with out the dramatic accent that the character requires. The identical occurred to the tenor Maximilian Schmitt, who gave Florestan a extra elegiac than heroic tone via an extreme use of vibrato. The veteran bass Peter Rose was one other excellent voice as a jailer Rocco who pointed with grasping staccato the start of his aria from the primary act Don't you even have goldThe Guipuzcoan soprano Elena Sancho additionally stood out, as her daughter Marzelline, each in her aria and within the ensembles.

In distinction, the Belgian bass-baritone Werner Van Mechelen created an excessively weak Pizarro, missing the sharpness required for the character. His colleague Matthias Winckhler was significantly better because the noble and fraternal minister Don Fernando. The Catalan tenor Roger Padullés and the 2 soloists of the prisoners' choir, Fernando Aguilera and Federico Gallar, additionally carried out effectively. In reality, the Spanish National Choir (CNE), directed by Miguel Ángel García Cañamero, sounded compact and nuanced in its male part within the first act, and drove the energetic finale of the work, now full, in a vivid C main.

The spotlight of the night was Afkham's musical course, which began from the start with a superb interpretation of the overture. It was effectively nuanced, peppered with instrumental sparkles and sounded ideally propelled to the tip. In the primary act, the velvety timbres of the violas and the divided cellos stood out, in the beginning of the canon quartet. I really feel so greathowever the string additionally elevated the doorway of the prisoners' choir with that inhalation-exhalation previous to the beginning of the voices.

Flashes of flutes, oboes and clarinets had been in every single place. The horns carried out effectively, besides within the very troublesome begin of the third horn in Leonora's aria. The trumpet soloist shone in his salvific fanfare. And the trombones did their half by underlining the allusions to dying, as did the contrabassoon as an emblem of obsession in its pairing with the decrease strings.

In reality, the German conductor admirably dealt with Beethoven's sober instrumentation, as Berlioz identified in the beginning. And we may see this within the introduction to Florestan's aria, which opens the second act and was one of many highlights of the night. It is among the most revolutionary pages of the work, with a fragmented and irregular writing that evokes the gloomy ambiance and Florestan's despair. Beethoven invitations us into the long run.