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A Labyrinth to Nowhere München
Nationaltheater
03/08/2026 - & March 8, 13, 15, July 12*, 15, 18, 2026
Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio, opus 72
Camilla Nylund (Leonore), Matthew Polenzani (Florestan), René Pape (Rocco), Tomasz Konieczny (Don Pizarro), Mirjam Mesak (Marzelline), Samuel Stopford (Jaquino), Ryan Speedo Green (Don Fernando), Tansel Akzeybeck, Pavel Horodyski (Prisoners)
Bayerischer Staatsopernchor, Extrachor und Kinderchor der Bayerischen Staatsoper, Christoph Heil (chorus master), Bayerisches Staatsorchester, Yoel Gamzou (conductor)
Calixto Bieito (stage director), Rebecca Ringst (sets), Ingo Krügler (costumes), Reinhard Traub (lighting)
(© Wilfried Hösl)
Some aficionados claim that Beethoven was not entirely in his element with opera, especially considering his staggering symphonic, chamber and piano output. Fidelio, his only opera, was one of the first I ever experienced, and perhaps that is why it has always appealed to me. Its libretto may not be expertly constructed, but it has never failed to move me. The intrigue is convincing enough and the characters are well defined, though one could argue that they do not have the opportunity to develop adequately within the brief span of the action.
For such a work to shine, an intelligent staging is required. Calixto Bieito, an iconoclastic director who has never appealed to me, is an unlikely candidate for the task. Every single staging by him has been the worst production of that particular opera that I have seen. The irony is that I had already seen this production when it premiered in 2010. The main attraction then was Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan, which obscured everything else. I remember a huge metallic structure with electric circuitry and cages. At the time, I simply ignored the vapid sets and enjoyed the singing. Alas, fifteen years later, the vocal component was not sufficiently enticing to make one overlook the hideous sets.
Fidelio has four principal characters: Leonore, who disguises herself as a man in order to obtain employment as a prison guard and search for her husband; her missing husband Florestan, who has been imprisoned for attempting to expose the prison governor Pizarro; Rocco, the greedy but kind‑hearted jailer; and the corrupt and evil governor himself, Don Pizarro. The secondary characters are Marzelline, Rocco’s daughter; her former suitor Jaquino, also a prison guard; and finally Don Fernando, the King’s minister, who arrives just in time to uncover the injustice and free Florestan.
The work’s historical context is impossible to ignore. Beethoven initially admired Napoleon Bonaparte as the embodiment of republican ideals before famously retracting that admiration when the latter crowned himself Emperor. The composer’s abhorrence of despotism permeates Fidelio. The prison in which Florestan languishes is not merely a physical place but a metaphor for political oppression and moral corruption. It is therefore unsurprising that generations of stage directors have sought to transpose the opera into contemporary settings, finding in its themes an unsettling permanence.
The Munich production avoided easy political parallels, although at one point the portrait of the tyrant worn by the prisoners bore a striking resemblance to Communist Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, and instead concentrated on the mechanisms of oppression itself. The bleak production attempted – mostly unsuccessfully – to examine how fear, surveillance and power gradually dehumanise both victims and perpetrators.
The set, at once claustrophobic and monumental, seemed to contract around the characters. Doors, corridors and enclosed spaces became visual metaphors for emotional imprisonment. The atmosphere was oppressive from the outset and remained so until the final moments. However, the colossal structure resembled a labyrinth more than a prison. Prisoners roamed throughout it with a degree of physical mobility one does not normally associate with incarceration in this opera. Moreover, they were clad in suits rather than rags, suggesting a totalitarian regime suppressing a distinctly bourgeois opposition.
The final scene was even more absurd. Don Fernando appeared as the Joker and seemed more malevolent than the customary saviour. Perhaps he was Don Pizarro’s accomplice and merely feigned relief at saving Florestan. Perhaps Bieito had set his opera in Absurdistan when he had Don Fernando shoot Florestan. At the very end of the opera, Florestan rose from the dead. Might Fidelio be a vampire or science‑fiction opera, with only the “genius” of Bieito having discovered this previously hidden aspect of Beethoven’s sole operatic venture?
Musically, the evening proved scarcely less uneven than the staging. Yoel Gamzou’s conducting displayed refinement and a commendable ear for orchestral detail, yet his attenuated dynamics and quasi-historically informed approach remained curiously detached from the emotional urgency of the drama. Overall, this performance was particularly lethargic, and yet it was occasionally marred by abrupt tempo adjustments which unsettled the singers, and the final “namenlose Freude” remained conspicuously devoid of joy. This was all the more regrettable because the Bayerisches Staatsorchester played magnificently whenever allowed to do so, while the Staatsoper Chorus, in splendid form, emerged among the evening’s chief honours.
The singing was equally uneven. Three performances rose decisively above the rest: Camilla Nylund’s Leonore, René Pape’s Rocco and Tomasz Konieczny’s Pizarro.
Together with Anja Kampe, Nylund is today’s leading Isolde and Brünnhilde as demonstrated in her performances of Tristan und Isolde in Bayreuth last summer and at La Scala’s recent performances of Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Nylund was the evening’s salvation and very nearly its sole justification. Several of my neighbours failed to return after the interval; I remained only for her. The Finnish soprano combined heroic amplitude with remarkable vocal security and uncommon dramatic intelligence. Her “Abscheulicher!... Komm, Hoffnung” was delivered with sovereign authority, the upper register gleaming effortlessly while the quieter passages retained genuine introspection. She portrayed Leonore not as an emblem of conjugal fidelity but as a woman of courage, vulnerability and implacable resolve. She was incandescent in “O namenlose Freude!” and genuinely formidable in her confrontation with Pizarro.
Sadly, I have not heard René Pape in a while. The last time was six years ago as Hunding in Madrid’s production of Die Walküre. Pape’s beautifully sung Rocco offered another considerable pleasure. The voice retained its customary warmth and authority, and his portrayal suggested a fundamentally decent man whose moral instincts had been dulled by habitual compromise. If he appeared less avuncular than usual, the blame rested squarely with the production.
Heard as a touching Kurwenal in Tristan und Isolde in Barcelona in January, Konieczny was a dramatically compelling Pizarro, a tyrant intoxicated by his own authority rather than a stock villain. If the voice occasionally lacked the darkest and most sinister colours the role ideally requires, his incisive declamation and commanding stage presence compensated amply.
Though Florestan appears only in the second act, the role is quite demanding. Matthew Polenzani was unfortunately unable to meet its heroic requirements. Once an outstanding lyric tenor, he seemed to have embraced the mistaken belief that lyric voices naturally evolve into dramatic ones. His upper register lacked brilliance and warmth, and the vocal inadequacies were impossible to overlook. Yet Polenzani remained a fine actor: his “Gott! Welch’ Dunkel hier” emerged as a haunting vision of exhaustion and despair, and he convincingly portrayed Florestan’s gradual return to hope.
The supporting cast offered little distinction. Mirjam Mesak’s Marzelline and Samuel Stopford’s Jaquino were pale and anonymous, depriving the opening scenes of their requisite freshness and charm. Last heard as Tebaldo in Monte‑Carlo’s production of Don Carlo, Mesak does not have the soubrette lyric soprano required for Marzelline. Heard as Pong and the Prince of Persia in Turandot a few days earlier, character tenor Samuel Stopford is not suited for the quasi-Mozartian role of Jaquino. Ryan Speedo Green, hoarse and oddly cast as Don Fernando, compounded the evening’s absurdities by appearing less as a minister of justice than as a character who had wandered in from a comic book. Brief though their appearances were, Tansel Akzeybek and Pavel Horodyski made notable impressions as the two prisoners.
Ultimately, the musical side of the evening mirrored the production itself: flashes of excellence surrounded by a great deal of mediocrity. Only Camilla Nylund’s magnificent Leonore, the superb chorus and the enduring genius of Beethoven prevented the performance from sinking entirely under the weight of its own inconsistencies.
Ossama el Naggar
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