US Edition 
The opera novice: Beethoven’s Fidelio
Beethoven's stirring hymn to human freedom is brought firmly down to earth in ENO's production, says Sameer Rahim.
After Gaddafi’s fall, the novelist Hisham Matar returned to Libya to search for his dissident father, who had been imprisoned in Tripoli’s Abu Salim prison since 1990. Though Matar did not find him (he is missing presumed dead), he did track down his uncle who had been held in the same hell-hole. Like Dickens’ Dr Manette, his uncle had a tough time adjusting to the outside world. Still Matar remained optimistic. “There’s only so much you can do to a man. You know, you can do a great deal. You could steal from them time and ability and possibility but you can’t erase that thing, that spirit.”
I was reminded of Matar’s uncle while watching ENO’s production of Beethoven’s Fidelio, directed by Calixto Bieito. The plot is simple: the heroine Leonore disguises herself as a man (Fidelio) to penetrate a prison where the evil Don Pizarro is holding her husband Florestan. Rocco, a prison warden who gives Leonore a job, is instructed to kill Florestan but is in two minds. Finding the wretched man in a forgotten dungeon, Leonore confronts Don Pizarro. Enter the benevolent minister Fernando, who releases the prisoner and restores justice. Though officially set in Spain, it’s hard not to think of the Bastille and Revolutionary France – with the king a Napoleon-figure.
Anyone with even a passing familiarity with Beethoven’s work will recognise the powerful, rousing rhythms of the music. Especially so in the Prisoners’ Chorus, which takes place when Leonore has compassionately allowed the prisoners a glipmse of the outside world. “O Welche Lust, in Freier Luft / Den Atem leicht zu heben!” they sing – “O what joy, in the open air / Freely to breathe again.” Although they express a collective will for human liberty, individual voices also rang out. It was a profoundly stirring moment.
Bieito’s production, though, is one that goes against the grain of Beethoven’s intentions. Encased in an abstract series of glass platforms that look rather like an early Donkey Kong video game, the characters are never truly set free even when their chains are loosed. So during the hymn to liberty we see a prisoner hang himself. An essay in the programme explains that Bieito is “ruminating on the illusive nature of freedom in a world where avarice, amorality and abuse too often serve the governing imperative”.
The director’s vision produces mixed results. The stage contraption is visually striking, though it makes the characters' movement round the stage awkward if not at times downright dangerous. The ending, in which Don Fernando is played as a sadistic fop who shoots Florestan, I found mystifying. (In the German version of this production he was played as the Joker from the Dark Knight Batman films. I’m not sure that would have made things clearer here.)
Yet for me some aspects worked. Downplaying the opera’s heroic tone meant the characters’ actions felt realistic. When Leonore and Florestan are finally united they sing a love duet. In this production, rather than gazing rapturously into one another’s eyes, they busy themselves with changing their clothes. Isn’t this embarrassment reflective of how a couple might actually react? When a string quartet was lowered in metal traps and playing the slow movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet Op132, it was a coup de theatre that verged on the plain silly. In the end I rather liked it – caged bird can still sing.
On the tube home I got chatting to an opera fan much less taken with the production. He pointed out that the relationship between Leonora and Rocco’s daughter, who has fallen in love with the girl disguised as a boy, was hardly highlighted. When it is revealed that Leonora has been deceiving the girl, it should produce regret and sadness on our heroine’s part. Instead they barely looked at each other. Which might go to show that in playing the opera as purely bleak, Bieito missed some of Beethoven’s own darker touches.