WHAT DO YOU do if your husband has been sentenced to death by an evil government? Why, if you’re in a grand classical opera replete with all the necessary hyperbole of the genre, that’s relatively easy. You dress up like a man, get the prison attendant’s daughter to fall in love with you, and then you can get access to the inner sanctuary of the jail and be with your guy until the evil government is overthrown. Without frippery, this is the central motif to Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio, which this week enjoyed a brief season with Metropolitan Opera, screened at selected Ster Kinekor outlets nationally in South Africa. During May, you can anticipate Met Opera live screenings of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Richard Strauss’s Salome.  

There’s a thread to Fidelio which holds the terrifying and unknowable political future which we currently face in a world on the brink of dictatorial regimes, and makes it as prescient as it was during the Napoleonic times when it was written. It is, however, soprano Lise Davidsen in the double-sided role of both Fidelio and Leonore, that holds the moment with such acuity, you cannot take your eyes off her. It is also her presence that raises this opera to a paean of hope in the face of injustice, and absolute excellence in the face of mediocrity.

With short-cropped hair and army fatigues, Fidelio presents as a young man, new to the environment. He wins the heart of Marzelline (Ying Fang) in a jiffy, but it is the camaraderie and trust of her father, Rocco (René Pape) that he needs. We, of course, in the audience, are in the know – given all the loud asides which we can hear, but the characters cannot – and poor Marzelline is a heartbroken casualty as the tale unfolds. In the jail, Leonore/Fidelio touches on true moments of emotion where she’s there with her beloved Florestan (David Butt Philip), but he doesn’t know it is her, and he is mournfully readying himself for a violent death.

The music is the salvation of this clear tale of good vs bad rivalry, where the bad guy, Don Pizzarro (Tomasz Konieczny) is scripted without nuance or redeeming features and everyone, even the naïve Marzelline, hates and fears him. Beautifully constructed in an appropriately drab set, as the story first takes place on the vestibule of a jail full of political prisoners, and then, continues after interval in the dungeon where the most dangerous of them all, Florestan himself, is held. It is about people unjustly withheld from their loved ones being freed, as it is about the power of love, but it is the potency of the music that enfolds you and uplifts you completely.

Like any other opera of the Classical period, it is lengthy. Like all MetOpera productions, it is unabashed in delivering the full work. It’s an investment of time, however, that you don’t regret: the story and the music flow magnificently.

Fidelio was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1814, with libretti by Joseph Sonnleithner. Directed by Jürgen Flimm, and masterminded for live screening by Gary Halvorson, it features creative input by Robert Israel (set), Florence von Gerkan (costumes) and Duane Schuler (lighting). Conducted by Susanna Mällki, it is performed by a cast headed by David Butt Philip, Lise Davidsen, Magnus Dietrich, Ying Fang, Tomasz Konieczny, Stephen Milling and René Pape. Performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, it broadcasts today at selected Ster Kinekor outlets throughout the country.  The next Met Opera screening in South Africa is Mozart’s Le Nozze de Figaro, releases on 9 May, and thereafter, Richard Strauss’s Salome, on 30 May 2025.