A Beethoven Opera

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 466, 28 May 1948, Page 9

A Beethoven Opera

EETHOVEN’S Fidelio is usually known to listeners by name only, as though it were one of those dead operas best forgotten. This is not quite the case, as it has seen many performances since it was written, and most of its revivals have been artistically successful. After hearing excerpts from this opera in a programme from 4YO, however, I can well understand why Fidelio will never become, like Carmen, Faust, and Rigoletto, a stock member of the operatic family, familiar to the ears and dear to the hearts of the opera-going public. In the 4YO programme we heard the ‘Fidelio Overture, airs of Leonora and Florestan, and a chorus. This short selection was enough to indicate the essential quality of the music, a pure and beautiful style far removed from the theatrical bravado necessary to capture the public imagination, Not that Beethoven can’t bi theatrical when he likes-and intensely dramatic. But it is Olympian thunder that he gives us, and Jovian drama, The classical loveliness of his music is always reminiscent of the Beethoven of the great symphonies, and he can never descend to the tinsel glories

so delightful in the operas of lesser composers. By the way, am I wrong in thinking that 4YO included in this programme the same aria under two different titles?