Fanfare for the Common Man

Perhaps the most famous section of the opera Fidelio is the Prisoners’ Chorus, “O welche Lust,” which begins with an ecstatic appreciation of the beauty of a single breath of fresh air. The fact that Beethoven gave the most beautiful music in the entire opera to a chorus of common prisoners shows us, I think, his belief that our connection to a higher power and our longing for freedom is inherent and universal
to every man.

Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera, a work that he re-wrote three times. It has been called a “secular oratorio,” and it is full of the passion that typifies so much of Beethoven’s work. When listening to Beethoven’s music in this piece, it sometimes feels as if the score can barely contain all of the emotion he is trying to express, that it is stretched to its absolute limit, and somehow there is an underlying tension,
a sense that if it were possible, he would want you to feel even more than he has been able to capture on the page.

Fidelio has been subject to a multitude of interpretations. In many ways, the opera is a blank slate: the characters are not described in great detail; there is no mention in the score of the exact political situation at hand, and even Florestan’s “crime” against Pizarro is not identified explicitly. Instead, we have a story of brutal revenge versus great love: a broadly appealing theme. The piece features very large-scale ideas that are extremely relevant in the 21st century (the dream of a government free of tyranny, the inherent worth of the individual person), but ultimately it is a story about the incredible bravery of a woman who will stop at nothing to save her husband from a ruthless, unjust death sentence.