One of the roles German tenor Jonas Kaufmann has been most closely associated with is Florestan in Beethoven’s “Fidelio.” Arthaus Musik has just released a DVD of a 2004 performance of the opera at the Zurich Opera House with Kaufmann and a strong cast.
This version should not be confused with the Salzburg production in 2015, also with Kaufmann, which was booed by the audience. The anger at that performance wasn’t directed at the singers but at the director, who replaced the spoken lines with recorded sound effects.
The Zurich production is spare but thankfully conventional, presenting the opera as Beethoven intended, albeit with an expressionistic visual approach.
The opera is set in a Spanish prison. The title character and central figure is a woman, Leonore, who is the wife of Florestan.
The action begins on a light note, with a prison guard trying to romance Marzelline (the daughter of Rocco, the jailer). The young woman rejects her suitor because she has fallen in love with Fidelio, her father’s new assistant.
