Dudamel conducts the LA Phil in Los Angeles with a semi-stage proposal created for deaf and hearing audiences

The French drama Léonore ou L’amour conjugal on which Fidelio is based belonged to a genre very popular in the years of the French Revolution, the pièce à sauvetage, in which heroes, representing the forces of good, emerge victorious from a situation of grave danger after a series of vicissitudes, in an optimistic vision of the positive values of injustice and reason. 

The action takes place in 17th century Seville, in a terrible military prison, ruled by the cruel Don Pizarro, who secretly holds his worst enemy prisoner, Florestan, who has dared to proclaim truths that betray him. Leonora, a magnificent embodiment of the brave woman in love, suspects that her husband, the missing Florestan, is unjustly imprisoned. She disguises herself as a man, named Fidelio, and gains the trust of the jailer Rocco – a good character with great personal dignity – in a desperate attempt to save her husband.  

The first scenes follow the tone and structure of singspiel – Rocco’s daughter Marzelline falls in love with Fidelio believing she is a boy – but soon the opera becomes a splendid oratorio celebrating the strength of love and purity that defeats suffering and injustice. 

Gustavo Dudamel, charismatic and energetic, conducts his American orchestra: the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This innovative semi-staged production was created for both deaf and hearing audiences. Explained through the composer’s own music and the expressive gestural poetry of sign language, the performances explore the sublime communication that lies at the heart of all artistic expression. This performance is stage directed by Alberto Arvelo, in collaboration with the Deaf West Theatre (Los Angeles) and the Chorus of Manos Blancas de El Sistema (Venezuela).  

Premiered in 1805 at the Theater an der Wien, in the middle of the French military occupation of the city with a deaf Beethoven, the music brims over with the composer’s huge energy and passion in a score replete with idealism and sublimation. 

With the support of:

Fidelio

OPERA IN TWO ACTS
Llibret de Joseph von Sonleithner (1805) revisat per Stephan von Breuning (1806) i Georg Friedrich Treitschke (1814) basat en l’obra Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal de Jean-Nicolas Bouilly.
Estrena absoluta: 20/11/1805 al Theater an der Wien de Viena
Estrena a Barcelona: 11/01/1921, al Gran Teatre del Liceu
Darrera representació al Liceu: 02/06/2009
Total de representacions al Liceu: 47