Of the many genres in which Beethoven
worked, opera seems to have given him the greatest difficulties. It is not that
he lacked the capacity for musical drama – as most of his purely instrumental
works attest – but rather that his sense of drama as something continuous,
intense and unstoppable didn’t quite fit with the elaborate plots, closed forms
and spoken dialogue considered the norm of German-language operatic expression
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Although Fidelio, in its final form, would go on to secure its place in the
standard repertoire, it remains a work fascinating more for its uncontainable spirit
than its willingness to play by the rules.
Some of its structural imbalance can be
attributed to the opera’s complex genesis: it began as the three-act Leonore, and the first act, with its
minor characters and…
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