Gustavo Dudamel returns to the L.A. Phil to lead a new production of Beethoven's 'Fidelio' with Deaf West Theatre.
Beethoven’s “Fidelio” is a brave opera of liberation. It may also be a dramatically flawed opera, and one Beethoven anguished over longer than any of his other great works. But liberation itself is a flawed, fluid process that, as current events love to remind us, we’ve never managed to get right.
To describe the project might make it seem impossibly overstuffed. Each role is divided in two, between an actor from the notable L.A. company, who signs their part, and a singer. For the chorus, singers remain seated on two sides of the stage, while members of White Hands Choir — the young, hearing-impaired Venezuelan ensemble that is part of the country’s El Sistema — parade majestically on stage while carrying candles.
Usually, the first thing said about the performance would be about the sheer exhilaration that Dudamel, the orchestra and a mostly first-rate cast brought to Beethoven’s score. “Fidelio” has often been treated as a conductor’s opera, and it only took Dudamel those first attention-getting four bars of the Overture, so like the famous opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, to convey a sense of purpose.
A problem with the opera has always been that Beethoven relied on dialogue between musical numbers rather than recitative. In musical comedy that’s one thing, but “Fidelio” doesn’t stay funny for long, and the spoken parts, often somewhat trimmed, are rarely less than awkward.
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