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Fidelio in Absurdistan Barcelona
Teatro Liceu
05/26/2024 - & May 27*, 2024
Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio, opus 72
Tamara Wilson/Amelia Hensley (Leonore), Andrew Staples/Daniel Durant (Florestan), James Rutherford/Hector Reynoso (Rocco), Shenyang/Giovanni Maucere (Don Pizarro), Gabriella Reyes/Sophia Morales (Marzelline), David Portillo/Otis Jones (Jaquino), Patrick Blackwell/Mervin Primeaux‑O’Bryant (Don Fernando), Wesley Harrison, Alex Halliday (Prisoners)
Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música, Xavier Puig (chorus master), Cor del Gran Teatre del Licceu, Pablo Assante (chorus master), Coro de Manos Blancas, María Inmaculada Velásquez Echeverría (Valencian sign language director), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel (conductor)
Deaf West Theatre, DJ Kurs (artistic director), Alberto Arvelo (stage director & concept), Joaquín Solano (co‑stage director & concept), Solange Mendoza (costumes), Tyler Glover & Tyler Lambert-Perkins (lighting), Collin Analco (sign language choreography), Bridget Berrigan (assistant sign language choreography)
I fondly remember the opening scene of Werner Herzog’s 1982 film, Fitzcarraldo. Klaus Kinski and Claudia Cardinale are rushing frantically into the Manaus Opera in the Amazon only to catch the final trio of Verdi’s Ernani. Enrico Caruso was singing Ernani and tragedienne Sarah Bernhardt was acting as his love interest Elvira, while a fat soprano was singing the role offstage. At one time, such a practice existed in opera, to show off superstar actors while others did the actual singing offstage. At the time, I was intrigued by such a setup, but never expected to see it in my lifetime.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel presented a variant of such a situation: Beethoven’s Fidelio was performed at Barcelona’s venerable Teatro Liceu in a concert version featuring a set of first‑rate singers as well as hearing-impaired actors, using sign language for the spoken dialogue and gesticulating for the sung parts.
Doing away with the spoken German dialogue in a non‑German speaking city may have seemed intuitive. Indeed, I remember seeing Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Cairo in my teens, with the singers acting out the spoken dialogues in Arabic to the benefit of the public. This opera‑comique format of alternating music and speaking, common to French and German opera, is tedious for many. However, replacing dialogue with sign language is still more cumbersome, at least for the general public.
Some aficionados claim Beethoven was not entirely in his element with opera, especially considering his staggering symphonic, chamber and piano output. Fidelio, his only opera, was one of the first I ever experienced, and perhaps that’s why it has always appealed to me. Its libretto may not be expertly constructed, but it has never failed to move me. The intrigue is convincing enough, and the characters well‑defined, but one could argue they don’t get a chance to adequately develop in the short time in which the action occurs. For such a work to blossom, an intelligent staging is in order. Faute de mieux, Fidelio is often presented in a concert version format.
Fidelio has four main characters: Leonore, who disguises herself as a man to get a job as a prison guard to search for her husband; her disappeared husband Florestan, whom we later realize is sequestered for his attempts to expose the prison governor Pizarro; Rocco, the greedy but kind prison guard; and the corrupt, evil prison governor Pizarro. The secondary characters are Marzelline, Rocco’s daughter; her previous sweetheart Jaquino, also a prison guard; and finally Don Fernando, the King’s minister, who arrives just in time to uncover the injustice and free Florestan.
As the development of most of the characters is already weak, it wasn’t certain the “innovation” chosen here strengthened this already dramatically tenuous opera. Initially, and up to the sublime first act quartet “Mir ist so wunderbar”, the duplication of characters by the hearing impaired actors was actually refreshing. This moving quartet is a glorious moment in the Mozartian style, akin to Così fan tutte’s trio “Soave sia il vento.” The emotions of the four voices (dramatic soprano, lyric soprano, tenor and bass‑baritone) poured out with graceful elegance. The voices of the four blended perfectly, and the orchestral support was flawless.
Soon after, the duplication of roles became tedious: the actors were a distraction from the action on stage. At times, they acted as the alter ego of each character, with each interacting with the singer they represented. They acted out the spoken dialogues while the singers stood idle, and conversely gesticulated emotions while the singers performed. But unlike the usual version with spoken dialogue, there was a lack of coherence.
American soprano Tamara Wilson, in the title role, was the undisputed vocal wonder of the show. Heard recently as Turandot in Paris, Wilson is a vocal phenomenon, a wonder of nature, who confronts demanding tessitura roles with a baffling ease. Moreover, she does so without sacrificing expressiveness. Her diction was impressive, with every word in Act I’s “Abscheulicher” clearly understood and with the right emphasis.
British tenor Andrew Staples was a superb Florestan. His aria “Gott! Welch’ Dunkel hier” was gorgeously interpreted, with admirable diction. He’s a lyric tenor with a sizeable voice who ably tackles this role, usually sung by a dramatic tenor. His Mozartian and Straussian antecedents explain such beautiful phrasing.
Other than Wilson and Staples, the glory of the evening was the Los Angeles Philharmonic, who performed majestically under the baton of their leader Gustav Dudamel. Congratulations are in order to the well‑prepared chorus – an important element of this opera.
The remaining singers were commendable, but the stage became too crowded with singers and their actor alter‑egos onstage. At its conclusion, things turned carnavalesque when the chorus of prisoners were augmented by a chorus of sign language actors.
The costumes were not indicative of any specific time or place. They reminded me of Calaf, Prince of Tartaristan, in Turandot, or characters in Denis Villeneuve’s recent Dune films, evocative of a nomadic people. Late seventeenth century Seville was discarded in favour of universality. The singers were dressed in white, particularly unflattering to the heavy‑set Wilson. The actors were dressed in more appealing garb in darker shades of beige and brown.
As an opera is both a visual and auditory experience, it’s hard to appreciate this innovation. Is it worthwhile for a hearing-impaired person to pay the substantial cost of a ticket at a leading opera house to see a visual performance by sign language actors? After all, while opera is theatre, it is above all music.
Conversations overheard at intermission all had the same gist: this is a “woke‑inspired” event with the intent of inclusivity. The rainbow not only includes gay, trans and ethnic minorities, but also the hearing-impaired. If that was the purpose, one can imagine it will take its course along with other fads. Nonetheless, I was deeply moved by the scores of people who stood to applaud in sign language. Though perhaps superfluous to the majority, I salute this effort at inclusivity, especially of a work by Beethoven, who was himself hearing-impaired.
Ossama el Naggar
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