Beethoven’s Fidelio at Severance

Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra are wrapping up the 2025-2026 Season this month, and this weekend featured the orchestra’s annual opera production: Beethoven’s only work in the genre, Fidelio.

Let’s put the obvious up front, as an opera, Fidelio has strengths and glaring weaknesses.  It went through two failed productions in 1805 and 1806 before it was heavily revised and successfully mounted in 1814.  Beethoven was never a great writer for the voice, and this opera puts that limitation front and center. The libretto, which was based on two previous operas, centers around a woman who disguises herself as a man to get a job as a prison guard and free her husband from captivity.  Beethoven’s pacing is uneven and things don’t really get moving until the second act.  Yet what matters most is not the details of the plot, but the thematic context: the durability of love and freedom from oppression.

This was my first time seeing Fidelio.  Though it was presented without staging, several things came through that aren’t that apparent on recordings: the humor when Marzelline snarkily resists Jaquino’s advances in the first act; or the absurdity when Rocco notes of Leonore/Fidelio “this woman was about to become my son-in-law!”

As usual, the orchestra played spotlessly and with superb balance, so the singers were never overpowered.  Welser-Möst’s pacing was masterful.  Tony F. Sias presented the narrative sections in English which helped clarify the plot.  The singers were consistently on a high level; but special mention must be made of David Butt Philip’s performance as Florestan, whose opening “GOTT!” was simply astonishing.

In today’s era, particularly in the United States, when LGBTQ people find their rights being threatened, and when trans and non-binary people are subject to increasing hostility, the Cleveland Orchestra’s production of Fidelio can be legitimately seen as having more than musical context.  The past few years have demonstrated that this valued and venerable Cleveland institution is unafraid to make statements that go beyond pure music.