Und spür ich nicht linde, sanft säusenlnde Luft?
Beethoven left us only one opera, Fidelio. The plot is simple: Florestan has been captured and imprisoned by his enemy Pizarro, and a report of his death has been circulated. Florestan's wife Leonore doesn't believe it, though, and disguises herself as a boy and enters the sevice of the jail entrusted to Pizarro. During the course of the opera, she gains access to the dungeon where Florestan is imprisoned, foils Pizarro's attempt to kill him for real, and frees him.
Fidelio had a difficult birth; Beethoven's genius was symphonic rather than dramatic, the subject was lofty and philosophical, the characters more idealistic types than people, and the premiere was given in 1805, the wake of Napoleon's first invasion of Vienna, to a theater full of French officers. (It failed, of course.) Two revisions later, in 1814, it was finally a success, and has been part of the standard repertory ever since. Despite its dramatic flaws, it is one of my favorite operas, because Beethoven's music breathes life, almost by force, into this unlikely drama.
Act II begins in Florestan's dungeon, with a wonderfully gruesome orchestral introduction depicting the black hellhole itself, and the starved man languishing without hope under the tyranny of Pizarro. Florestan is introduced with a recitative and aria, wherein he recounts how it was his pursuit of the truth about Pizarro that gained him his chains; he is nonetheless consoled by the knowledge that he did the right thing. A conventional suffering hero might be expected to stop here, but Beethoven and his librettist give Florestan more humanity than that. The tempo quickens, and to an oboe obbligato, Florestan succumbs to delirium:
Und spür ich nicht linde, sanft säusenlde Luft?
Und ist nicht mein Grab mir erhellet?
Ich seh', wie ein Engel, im rosigen Duft,
Sich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet.
Ein Engel, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich,
Der führt mich zur Freiheit, ins himmlische Reich!"
Don't I feel a gentle, softly-whispering breeze?
And is not my grave flooded with light?
I see, like an angel, in a rosy glow,
Standing by my side to comfort me,
An angel, so like my wife, Leonore,
Who shall lead me to freedom in the heavenly kingdom!
The oboe rises to a high F as Florestan falls back to sleep, to dream of his wife, who is on her way to free him.
I have never heard a more convincing performance of this aria than Jon Vickers' on the famous 1962 recording with Otto Klemperer.
Fidelio had a difficult birth; Beethoven's genius was symphonic rather than dramatic, the subject was lofty and philosophical, the characters more idealistic types than people, and the premiere was given in 1805, the wake of Napoleon's first invasion of Vienna, to a theater full of French officers. (It failed, of course.) Two revisions later, in 1814, it was finally a success, and has been part of the standard repertory ever since. Despite its dramatic flaws, it is one of my favorite operas, because Beethoven's music breathes life, almost by force, into this unlikely drama.
Act II begins in Florestan's dungeon, with a wonderfully gruesome orchestral introduction depicting the black hellhole itself, and the starved man languishing without hope under the tyranny of Pizarro. Florestan is introduced with a recitative and aria, wherein he recounts how it was his pursuit of the truth about Pizarro that gained him his chains; he is nonetheless consoled by the knowledge that he did the right thing. A conventional suffering hero might be expected to stop here, but Beethoven and his librettist give Florestan more humanity than that. The tempo quickens, and to an oboe obbligato, Florestan succumbs to delirium:
Und spür ich nicht linde, sanft säusenlde Luft?
Und ist nicht mein Grab mir erhellet?
Ich seh', wie ein Engel, im rosigen Duft,
Sich tröstend zur Seite mir stellet.
Ein Engel, Leonoren, der Gattin so gleich,
Der führt mich zur Freiheit, ins himmlische Reich!"
Don't I feel a gentle, softly-whispering breeze?
And is not my grave flooded with light?
I see, like an angel, in a rosy glow,
Standing by my side to comfort me,
An angel, so like my wife, Leonore,
Who shall lead me to freedom in the heavenly kingdom!
The oboe rises to a high F as Florestan falls back to sleep, to dream of his wife, who is on her way to free him.
I have never heard a more convincing performance of this aria than Jon Vickers' on the famous 1962 recording with Otto Klemperer.