“The best orchestra in the world” – that was how Le Monde referred to the MCO after the orchestra performed Beethoven’s Fidelio in April 2008 at the Teatro Real in Madrid under the direction of Claudio Abbado. The production, which also came to Baden-Baden, Ferrara, Reggio Emilia and Modena, was one of the most successful and most important opera projects in the history of the orchestra. In 2009, the production was awarded Italy’s Franco Abbiati music criticism prize with explicit praise for the “coherent and fascinating reading which gave meaning to every single facet of the many-layered score”. Abbado was honoured as conductor of the year by the German magazine Opernwelt, in particular for his interpretation of Fidelio.
From the beginning, Claudio Abbado has called on the MCO to join him for particularly extraordinary projects: the MCO played when he interpreted Mozart’s Magic Flute for the first time in 2005, and in 2003 Abbado named the MCO as the core of his newly founded LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA (LFO).
In the summer of 2010, Fidelio will be featured on the programme of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL. Musical direction is once again in the hands of Claudio Abbado, and one again the Mahler Chamber Orchestra will play, this time in combination with the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. This will be the first time that the festival opens with a concert performance of an opera, and the high calibre cast of singers (Jonas Kaufmann, Nina Stemme, Christof Fischesser, Rachel Harnisch, Falk Struckmann and Peter Mattei) promises that the performance will be a festival highlight.
“Eros” is this year’s motto in Lucerne, and the festival programme explores the most famous love stories in the history of music. Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, a considerable source of headache for the composer during the many years of its creation, pays homage to a love that risks everything and, in the end, also wins everything. Love and fidelity to her husband allow Leonore to follow her path with conviction and give her the courage and the strength to free her beloved from captivity. Nothing can deter or delay her from her quest; even the confusion that arises from her disguise as a man never distracts her from her goal. And Florestan, about whom we learn neither the reason for his years of imprisonment nor the exact details of his relationship to his captor Pizzaro, experiences a vision of an angel in the form of his lover (or his lover in the form of an angel?) as he stands near to death by starvation and his senses are literally failing him. Erotic love takes hold in the duet in the second act, as Leonore and Florestan sing of the “unnameable joy” with which they embrace. Here, music is the expression of great passion. The tension that builds up slowly through the subtle orchestral accompaniment of the dialogue-heavy dungeon scene is released musically in triumphant, ecstatic emotions.
The true victim of “Eros” in this opera is a secondary figure who is traditionally relegated to the “lower” spheres of musical theatre. But Marzelline, when taken seriously, is in reality one of the most tragic figures of opera repertoire: in love with a woman disguised as a man, she is left with nothing at the end. The composer grants her not a single word of explanation or apology. We never learn whether she survives the pain of realisation (“O woe is me, what do I hear!”), whether she turns her attention back to Jaquino, to whom she was “rather well” disposed before Fidelio came along, or whether she remains alone.
Fidelio is the second opera that the MCO performs in concert version in Lucerne. In 2009, Weber’s Der Freischütz, a co-production of the MCO residence NRW and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, was part of the programme. Opera has always been an important subject for the LUCERNE FESTIVAL, and it will take on an increasingly important role in the middle and long term. Work is underway on the Salle Modulable in Lucerne, a space with adjustable audience and stage areas. The project was initiated by the LUCERNE FESTIVAL as a venue for traditional, contemporary and experimental musical theatre that will allow for new interpretative possibilities and the exploration of new theatrical worlds.
