Beethoven's opera Fidelio is set in a prison where an innocent man, Florestan, has been secretly jailed for two years. His wife, disguised as a man named Fidelio, gains employment there to rescue her husband, and eventually finds him chained up in the vaults of the prison almost starved to death, on the orders of his arch enemy, Don Pizarro. Her faithful love conquers the evils of tyranny and oppression, and is celebrated in the 'hymn to liberty' which famously ends the opera.

This production by the Glyndebourne touring opera set the piece in a modern, but unspecified context. Given the many number of possible repressive regimes and prison cultures in our modern world which unfortunately lend themselves so readily to a staging of this opera, one could not help feeling that this potential for resonance which Beethoven's work still has was not explored.

Apart from a couple of unfortunate slips in the brass section, and Fidelio/Leonore's (Gunilla Stephen-Kallin) occasional waverings on the higher notes, musically the production was lively and exciting. Both Marzelline (Sarah Fox) and Rocco (Clive Bayley) sang beautifully and movingly, and were, for me, the highlights.

The finale of the opera in this production was staged as the reunion of not only Leonore and Florestan, but also of all the other prisoners with their wives or loved ones. With the stage fully lit, as though the vault which had been the prisoner's cell had been opened up to the light of the world outside, blossom, or maybe confetti, fell onto the rejoicing crowd.

Strangely, the scene failed to provoke strong emotions, perhaps because the audience had only a vague notion of the repressive power which had been overthrown, or because the stylised and obscure imagery was difficult to relate to. This Fidelio was dwarfed by the power of Beethoven's music throughout, and my overriding impression of the performance was that it lacked a 'big idea' that was suggested over and over again by the wonderful music, but not yet fully delivered by this production.

Emily Hardiment 27/11/01