‘Fidelio semi-staged, Premiere in Belgium’

During his lifetime Beethoven spent a lot of time working on his only opera. He recomposed the overture (known under the original title Leonore) a number of times and shortened the work considerably. The Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard are now making their own version of Fidelio, with revised spoken dialogues from the point of view of Joaquino in an innovative spatial installation by the young British director Sam Brown. Somewhere between staged and concertante performance, these artists find the right tone in which to tell the story of Leonore (played by the celebrated Nina Stemme) and Florestan.