Breaking the spell

Fidelio, once regarded as an uncomplicated celebration of what its title suggests, and of freedom, especially political freedom, has become a problem work, and most productions of it amount to uninterestingly complicated attempts to circumvent issues which shouldn’t have been present in the director’s mind in the first place.

Fidelio, once regarded as an uncomplicated celebration of what its title suggests, and of freedom, especially political freedom, has become a problem work, and most productions of it amount to uninterestingly complicated attempts to circumvent issues which shouldn’t have been present in the director’s mind in the first place. This has been a bad season, until Opera North broke the spell by mounting Tim Albery’s production, first seen in Scotland in 1994.

Last September, Welsh National Opera put on a production which was in every respect a simple disaster. Last month the Royal Opera managed a more elaborate but hardly less depressing mess.