After just a minute or two of Christiane Libor’s positively stunning performance in Beethoven’s “Fidelio” at Seattle Opera, you will have absolutely no doubt why Speight Jenkins sought Libor for the title role.
Jenkins, the company’s general director, saw German soprano Libor in Berlin and knew he had to have her for “Fidelio.” In her American opera debut at Seattle Opera on opening night last Saturday, Libor’s impassioned performance was gripping, and her lyrico-dramatic soprano powered through to the back of Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.
Beethoven did not normally compose for the voice. Some vocal passages in “Fidelio,” Beethoven's only opera, are far better suited to instrStill, even in the midst of the section in the aria “Abscheulerlicher!” Requiring dramatic singing at full volume, together with an agile octave run topping out in a high B natural, Libor’s voice never lost its beauty. There wasn’t an inkling of the stridency I find unappealing in so many dramatic sopranos.
Libor’s character, Fidelio, is actually a woman, Lenore, masquerading as a male prison guard. She uses her guise as Fidelio to penetrate prison security to try to save her husband, Florestan, unjustly detained by the prison’s governor, Don Pizarro. The opera was sparked by Beethoven’s admiration for the French Revolution, freedom and equal rights.
Sadly, tyranny and political injustice never go out of fashion, making “Fidelio,” composed in 1805, incredibly relevant today. Director Chris Alexander and set designer Robert Dahlstrom took advantage of the fact there are no pesky details that tether “Fidelio” to its original time period or place, and moved the opera into the present. Dahlstrom’s set, created for Seattle Opera’s 2003 production of “Fidelio,” is a modern prison with no particular location. Time-stained concrete, barbed wire, and guard towers hem in the prisoners with the aid of computer screens, spotlights and high-powered guns. Costume designer Catherine Meacham Hunt’s costumes further enhance the opera’s universality by mixing references from different eras and places, including prison uniforms suggestive of both modern police and German prison officers in World War II.
It was a distinct pleasure to listen to the amazing blending of the skilled principals’ voices in the opera’s duets, trios and quartets, and to watch Alexander’s deft directing, rich in character and staging details. Tenor Clifton Forbis also more than held his own against Libor, vocally and theatrically, as the valiant Florestan. Greer Grimsley is an intensely dramatic bass-baritone, perfect for the oppressor Pizarro, displaying not only the commanding voice but also the requisite menace. While Arthur Woodley as the jailer Rocco has the same range as Pizarro, Woodley’s is a much warmer voice, apropos to his conflicted, humane character.
With a sizable but lovely soprano voice, Anya Matanovic was also feisty and sympathetic as Marzelline, a young woman misguidedly in love with Fidelio. John Tessier was a good match for Matanovic as Marzelline’s unwanted suitor Jaquino.
The score fortified the singers as conductor Asher Fisch and his orchestra honored Beethoven’s use of tempo and shifts in volume to create drama and tension.
One of the most breathtakingly beautiful moments belonged to the Seattle Opera Men’s Chorus, as rehearsed by John Keene. Performing the “Prisoner’s Chorus,” the men’s voices alternated sublimely between the prisoners’ joy and hope of a brief moment in the sunshine and the oppressive fear of being shut up again. The song epitomizes “Fidelio,” and is an all-too-human reminder of the price of tyranny.
Seattle Opera’s “Fidelio” plays at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer St., through Saturday, Oct. 27. Prices $25-$205. Tickets/information: 389-7676, www.seattleopera.org
[[In-content Ad]]