Christine Mielitz’s production of Beethoven’s »Fidelio« celebrated its premiere on 7 October 1989. While local citizens took to the streets in front of the Semperoper in support of democracy and human rights, the director placed this »opera of liberation« in a contemporary prison courtyard featuring a surveillance tower and barbed wire. At a time of revolution, terror and war, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his opera about a woman who, disguised as a man, tries to rescue her husband from illegal incarceration in a secret prison. In the story, the heroism of Leonore is juxtaposed with the banal world of the prison warden Rocco; simultaneously, grand opera is contrasted with German Singspiel. At the end comes liberation, delineated by Beethoven in almost superhuman, utopian music. More than three decades after its premiere, this Dresden production of »Fidelio« from 1989 has lost none of its intensity.
Conductor David Afkham
Staging after Christine Mielitz
Set Design & Costume Design Peter Heilein
Lighting Design Eike Wilm Schulte
Choir Jan Hoffmann
Dramaturgy Wolfgang Pieschel
Florestan David Butt Philip
Don Pizarro Markus Marquardt
Leonore Eleanor Lyons
Marzelline Jasmin Delfs
Rocco Georg Zeppenfeld
Jaquino Mario Lerchenberger
Don Fernando Neven Crnić
Erster Gefangener Jörg Reißmann, Torsten Schäpan
Zweiter Gefangener Norbert Klesse, Holger Steinert