Salzburg Festival 2015: Fidelio

About this event

Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, features as the highlight of the Salzburg Festival 2015: the stirring work centered around Leonore, who frees her incarcerated spouse Fidelio from prison, is timelessly relevant with powerful emotional situations and jarringly human pleas of anguish from Leonore: “Whoever you are, I want to rescue you. By God! You shall not be a victim!”

Director Claus Guth, renowned for his profound interpretations of opera, replaces the spoken dialogue with menacing sounds, doubling Leonore with a deaf, singing actress. The result is a splendidly staged, new and deeply touching picture of the masterpiece, ending in the breakdown of the hugely traumatised character, Florestan, to the accompaniment of exaltant music.

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra delivers an intensely enthralling orchestral sound, supported by the concert association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus under Franz Welser-Möst to accompany a star-studded cast including the two principal characters played by Adrianne Pieczonka and Jonas Kaufmann. The New York Times reported: “the conductor Franz Welser-Möst won a huge ovation, along with the excellent singers, especially the two leads. They are the astonishing tenor Jonas Kaufmann, who makes a wrenching, haunted Florestan, and the compelling, bright-voiced soprano Adrianne Pieczonka as Leonore”.

The hitherto unachieved utopian vision of justice, fraternity, and liberty shines eternal.

Featuring

Orchestra: Wiener Philharmoniker

Conductor: Franz Welser-Möst

Chorus: Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor

Chorus Master: Ernst Raffelsberger

Stage Director: Claus Guth

Leonore: Adrianne Pieczonka

Florestan: Jonas Kaufmann

Don Pizarro: Tomasz Konieczny

Rocco: Hans-Peter König

Marzelline: Olga Bezsmertna

Jaquino: Norbert Ernst

Don Fernando: Sebastian Holecek

Repertoire

1. Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio op. 72 (Vienna 1814)

Duration: approx. 137 minutes.

Subtitles available in English and German.

This video is provided free of charge as a teaser video as part of a cooperation with UNITEL in connection with the relaunch of myfidelio.

Dieses Video wird im Rahmen einer Kooperation mit UNITEL im Zusammenhang mit dem Relaunch von myfidelio als Teaser-Video kostenlos zur Verfügung gestellt.