Letter from the Artistic Director

Dear Friends,

In exploring trends in late 18th century opera before and through the French Revolution, it was natural for Opera Lafayette to look at Beethoven’s early 19th century Fidelio as a work growing out of this period. Perhaps because Beethoven is so often seen as inspiring later 19th century composers referred to as the Romantic Generation, it seemed that approaching him by way of his predecessors might yield new insights and help us better appreciate the ways in which he was original. Performing Beethoven’s rarely heard first version of the opera from 1805, which he called Leonore, might especially bring us closer to his 18th century roots.

Opera Lafayette has had extensive experience performing works and modern premieres of Monsigny, Grétry, and Cherubini, composers who helped create the genre of the rescue opera into which Leonore/Fidelio fits. The most obvious choice of a predecessor to help us understand Beethoven’s only opera, however, was the work which provided his libretto, Gaveaux and Bouilly’s own Léonore, ou L’Amour conjugal from 1798. This was a work that probably had not been performed in over 200 years, and so we set about to prepare it with the idea that we would be able to tell the story of both Gaveaux’s and Beethoven’s operas in a similar production, and that we would film each so that others would also have the chance to compare them.

Beethoven’s 1805 version presented several questions which scholars have been poring over for years, however. The most pressing was how to present the opening scene of Act 3, which was missing some of Florestan’s aria. Opera Lafayette was extremely fortunate to be able to interest Will Crutchfield in re-imagining the missing pieces of this aria.

As with all of Opera Lafayette’s projects that seek to rediscover lost works, we are indebted to a host of scholars whose research inspires us and makes our work possible. The enclosed program notes by Julia Doe and Nizam Kettaneh, and the essay by Mr. Crutchfield, represent just a few of those who were closest to our Leonore Project. In addition, the work of Michael Tusa and Helga Lühning was central to our understanding of Beethoven’s intentions in 1805, and we also received assistance from Kristina Muxfeldt and Kirby Haugland.

We are grateful to this community of scholars as much as we are to our creative team, cast, orchestra, staff, board, and donors, and hope with this project to make a small contribution to the field of opera on the occasion of Beethoven’s 250th anniversary.

Ryan Brown