6/11/2023 0 Comments Sf opera fidelio review![]() Leonore (soprano Elza van den Heever) and Florestan (tenor Russell Thomas) are reunited in Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” (Photo courtesy Cory Weaver/San Francisco Opera) Their Act 2 duet thrilled and drove the opera to a perfect finish. Soprano Elza van den Heever, who made her 2007 company debut as Donna Anna in “Don Giovanni,’’ is a ravishing Leonore vocally and dramatically, leaving no doubt about her dedication to her cause, and tenor Russell Thomas, who has sung works by Donizetti and Bellini here, partners her with equal security and passionate phrasing. The staging concept works well, and the singing on all counts is superb. Music director Eun Sun Kim’s conducting in the first act seemed somewhat sprawling and unfocused at times, but she led the orchestra to a fiery finale. If anything, this scene, taking place in a prison administration office, is overplayed for comedic content, so that in the quartet where jailer Rocco, his daughter Marzelline and her suitor Jaquino and Fidelio join forces, her pivotal message was difficult to perceive. ![]() The first act is a difficult call, a flirtation between the jailer’s daughter Marzelline and her suitor Jaquino, in which Fidelio must identify herself and her mission, setting the stage for what is to come. The story revolves around Leonore, a young woman who has taken a job in the prison disguised as a man named Fidelio in order to search for her husband Florestan, a political prisoner close to death from torture and starvation.īeethoven’s only opera is a probing commentary on tyranny in the composer’s time, and director Matthew Ozawa and designer Alexander Nichols make the case for contemporary relevance powerfully, showing women prisoners being brutalized by guards, male inmates kicked and beaten and everyone mercilessly shadowed by flashing video monitors. While the opera was originally set in an 18th century prison, this production places the action in a modern prison setting, a rotating steel cage jammed with inmates and guards. A new staging of Beethoven’s “Fidelio’’ opened at San Francisco Opera last week.
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