Beethoven: Leonore - Jones, King, Adam, Nienstedt, Hausmann, Hollweg, Wächter; Melles. ORF, 1970
$16.95
Description:
It is no secret that Beethoven agonized for years over Fidelio. This performance of his earlier version, Leonore, is a fascinating glimpse into Beethoven's compositional process. Unlike other early versions of operas (i.e. Macbeth, Butterfly etc) Leonore almost sounds like an entirely different piece. Not only did he remove numbers altogether, but many of the arias and ensembles that survived have differences large and small. "Abscheulicher" begins with an entirely new recit before the aria. "O namenlose Freude" begins with a recit and once the duet proper begins, Leonore and Florestan sing the opening lines together as opposed to antiphonally. There is also a beautiful duet between Leonore and Marzelline that has an obbligato violin solo. The differences go on and on and in some cases you can see the wisdom in Beethovens' changes and in other instances you find yourself wishing he had had more confidence in his original composition. The cast of this performance does much to advocate for the earlier version. Gwyneth Jones sings the title role with both classical grace and romantic ardor. James King may have been glad that the earlier version of "Gott! Welch dunkel hier" was not as strenuous as its final iteration, but still sings like a god. Theo Adam is an excellent Pizarro.
NOTE:
The sound is pretty good although there is some brief skipping that I couldn't remove during the Act I duet between Pizarro and Rocco.
OD 10936-2
Listen to a Sample:
A slightly more helpful review than the one I wrote in 2016
I still like it...and it's exhilarating when sung by the likes of Jones and King. The revised version is a more compact, stage worthy, opera. There are stretches of music in Fidelio where there is not much stage action - nor does it "fix" that situation when directors have the singers tromp back and forth across the stage. Leonore has even more of those stand and sing moments. That's fine with me, and concert versions like this one make sense. Although the revised Fidelio has more difficult and taxing music for Forestan, the revised music for Leonore, while still still taxing, does not have those sustained high C's in the second act. The slightly lower range undoubtedly makes it possible for excellent Lenore's like Martha Mödl, Christa Ludwig, Regine Crespin and the post WWll Kirsten Flagstad to take up the role - and for that I am grateful. The sound is very good on these discs; there are a few commercial recordings of the 1805 version that include librettos, should that be important to you. Meanwhile, this offering is an excellent introduction to this fascinating precursor to the 1814 Fidelio.
Excellent Performance in Excellent Sound!
A friend of mine hates Beethoven's early version of Fidelio, Leonore. "It's a terrible opera!" he insists. As I've said elsewhere here on Opera Depot some of the arias and ensembles go on for too long and the vocal demands are more strenuous without a satisfying payoff. Nevertheless given a cast who believes in the piece Beethoven's first thoughts on his only opera are fascinating and rewarding in their own right. This is such a performance. Jones is tireless as Leonore really making something of her duet with Florestan in the second act which, in this version, is higher and more florid than the version we're used to hearing (it twice goes to a sustained C). King doesn't get the aria he gets in the revised version, but Beethoven does give him some very dramatic recitatives not in Fidelio and King sings them very convincingly. All the other singers are great too. I particularly enjoyed Hausmann's lovely Marzelline. She gets an extra duet with Leonore that Beethoven cut from Fidelio. Melles conducts very well and his chorus and orchestra are also excellent. This performance was done as a concert without the spoken dialogue between the musical numbers (although Jones and Nienstedt do speak their lines in the Act Two melodrama). The sound is very good. Andy mentions skipping in the Pizarro/Rocco duet, but my copy played fine there. I did have trouble with recurrent skipping in track 10 of disc 2. Hopefully it was just my copy. Certainly worth hearing with this cast!
