Fidelio

Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio is a gripping hymn to freedom and justice, themes particularly resonant today. Cyril Teste takes inspiration from American prisons, as a metaphor of the world, to reflect on what surveillance and punishment can mean today. 

Just 18 years old when the French Revolution broke out, Beethoven was captivated by its ideals of liberty and fraternity. A few years later, Fidelio would brilliantly exemplify his political convictions, and would testify to the social role that he believed music must fulfil. After her husband’s disappearance two years earlier, to escape the clutches of the enemy governor Don Pizarro, Leonore disguises herself as a prison guard to save her husband from torture and painful death. With its subject matter, its energy and the power of the writing, the opera proved to be a visionary work: the struggle for a world in which love can survive; a strong message of humanism and hope; a dream of liberty, generosity and solidarity. With a masterful use of staged video, Cyril Teste follows the radical path of this heroine to exalt the power of images, as a tool of resistance against corruption.

Music Ludwig van Beethoven
Libretto Joseph Sonnleithner & Georg Friedrich Treitschke

Musical director Adrien Perruchon
Stage director Cyril Teste
Stage co-director Céline Gaudier 

Dijon Bourgogne Orchestra
Dijon Opera Choir
Maîtrise de Dijon

Stage sets Valérie Grall
Lighting Julien Boizard
Costumes Marie La Rocca
Sound Thibault Lamy
Video Mehdi Toutain-Lopez, Nicolas Doremus
Dramaturgy Leila Adham
Artistic collaboration on the staging Céline Gaudier
Costume assistant Peggy Sturm 
Camera operator Claire Willemann

Fidelio/ Leonore Sinead Campbell Wallace
Florestan Maximilian Schmitt
Marzelline Martina Russomanno
Rocco Mischa Schelomianski
Don Pizarro Aleksei Isaev
Don Fernando Edwin Crossley Mercer
Jaquino Léo Vermot Desroches
First prisoner Takeharu Tanaka
Second prisoner Henry Boyles

Guard Morgan Lloyd Sicard, Melki Izzouzi
Children Camille Quentin, Henanxi Chen, Inès Ravat, Justin Ponce, Kaïs Naïmi, Pauline Sauvaget, Schahrazed Allagui, Solène Chapuis

 _{* Artists from the Dijon Opera Choir}

^{Coproduction Opéra Comique, Opera Nice Côte d’Azur, Dijon Opera, Collective MxM}

^{© Beethovenhaus Bonn / G. Henle Verlag München / Bärenreiter-Verlag Kassel
Illustration © Lorenzo Mattotti
Photos © Stefan Brion}