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Tarfumes.com - Beethoven: Fidelio
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List Price: $23.98
Our Price: $115.05
Availability: N/A
Manufacturer: EMI Classics
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Average Customer Rating: 
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0724356736122
Format: Original recording remastered
Label: EMI Classics
Manufacturer: EMI Classics
Number Of Discs: 2
Publisher: EMI Classics
Release Date: 2000-08-15
Studio: EMI Classics
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Editorial Reviews:
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Under Klemperer, a maestro with roots in a great operatic tradition, this is a monumental, authoritative performance. From the very beginning of the Fidelio Overture, tempi are slow, deliberate, expansive: every note is important and vibrantly alive; every vocal and instrumental line stands out; there is time for poised changes and transitions. Chorus and orchestra are splendid; not only do all the soloists sing fabulously, but using all their vocal resources to bring out the character of words and music, they create real people and situations, mood and atmosphere. With a mostly German cast, even the spoken dialogue seems to aid rather than disrupt the drama. Berry is a wonderfully venomous villain, yet he sings every note accurately; Vickers, darkening his voice, makes Florestan more resigned than heroic, breathless in his ecstatic hallucination. Ludwig's voice is flawless over a huge range, warm yet gloriously radiant; she is an ideal Leonore in style, expression, and characterization. --Edith Eisler
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A great Fidelio
Comment: This recording is the only one i own. I purchased it reading the comments / reviews here on Amazon. The recording / conducting ( by Otto Klemperer ) is really magnificent. I've enjoyed every second of it. You can't go wrong with this one. The recording my be a bit old (1962), but the recording sounds superb (very good job remastering it). If you don't have it yet... get it now :)
Customer Rating:
Summary: An indispensible Fidelio
Comment: This is one of the 2 or 3 best Fidelio recordings ever made and belongs in the library of every admirer of this opera and of Beethoven. It was previously issued on CD but without the Leonore overture no. 3. This problem is now remedied because the Leonore overture no. 3 is included as an appendix and can be easily programmed into the main performance if desired.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Must Have
Comment: Klemperer's Fidelio as remastered here is well deserving of its status as a "Great recording of The Century" by EMI. The sound is as clear as a digital recording and allows all the nuances of the orchestra and singers to be heard. Beethoven's opera is underrated I believe, and with this recording one can see why. The drama and emotion of the story are even more enhanced by the superb phrasing and dynamic contrast of Klemperer's interpretation. This recording should definitely ascend the ranks of your collections quite rapidly and you will enjoy it for a long time.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Just enough to hear Christa Ludwig.
Comment: For many years, Ms. Ludwig has been the leading mezzo in Germany, and not without good reasons.
Since her younger days when she sang Cosi fan tutte with Lisa della Casa for Karl Boehm's first recording of the opera, she has been a most promising mezzo-soprano on an international level. And her voice developed to even better dimensions as she ages.
Comparing with today's Cecilia Bartoil, Christa Ludwig not only enjoyed longer vocal brilliance, but also a much wider repertoire.
Some would say that Sena Jurinac's Klemperer Fidelio is better. That may be the case, but for reasons quite other than Ludwig's performance. Jurinac was a soprano, and Ludwig a mezzo. Leonora (Fidelio)'s role may either be tackled by a soprano or a mezzo, as in Wagner's Brunnhilde.
If you heard another brilliant German soprano Gundula Janowitz's Bernstein Fidelio, you would not have questioned the choice of Ludwig in the present recording. As Elisabeth Schwarzkopf said last January in an interview, Ludwig's voice is uncommon - it is very full. In the high, middle and low registers, I would add.
This is a major attribute that allowed her to tackle Leonora's role with brilliance. Even if her upper is not as brilliant as, say, Jurinac, or Mattila, her middle and lower registers more than compensate for that.
Another very 'different' Fidelio is Hildegard Behrens. Not a big voice, but with such sweet charm and boyish tinge that you would not have wondered why Marcellina gave up Jaquino for this 'fake' Fidelio. Either you catch the character's charm, or the character's determination. If best, you come with both. Christa Ludwig's voice scored well in both ends.
Jon Vickers' Florestine sounds too stout for me, though vocally very attractive.
Was Florestine not near to the end of his life by starvation when he appeared in the Second Act? I wonder why most critics called for a ''big voice'' in Don Florestine's role.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great conductor, orchestra and cast in classic "Fidelio"
Comment: Source: 1962 studio recording produced by Walter Legge.
Sound: State-of-the-art 1960s analog stereo, digitally remastered in 2000.
Cast: Leonore / Fidelio - Christa Ludwig; Florestan - Jon Vickers; Rocco - Gottlob Frick; Don Pizarro - Walter Berry; Marzelline (singing) - Ingeborg Hallstein; Marzelline (dialogue) - Elizabeth Schwarzkopf; Jaquino - Gerhard Unger; Don Fernando - Franz Crass; First Prisoner - Kurt Wehofschitz; Second Prisoner - Raymond Wolansky. Conductor: Otto Klemperer with the Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra.
Text: Spoken German dialogue is included but radically shortened to serve as little more than connective tissue between the musical elements.
"Fidelio" is the work of a man whose natural home was the concert platform, not the theater. It is burdened with long patches of dull and forgettable music interspersed with stunning musical brilliance. It is set in the form of a "rescue play," a tired cliche even in Beethoven's time. In the midst of flat, conventional forms it manages to extol love--albeit married love--in passages even more ecstatic than Wagner achieved in "Tristan und Isolde." The roles of Leonore / Fidelio and Florestan have proved fully worthy of the talents of the most heroically-voiced singers of every generation since the opera's premiere during the Napoleonic Wars. Beethoven's "Fidelio" is flawed, but it is a true masterpiece.
For many years, this performance of "Fidelio" was widely acclaimed as the finest of all recorded versions of Beethoven's only opera. As I write this, forty-four years after its initial issue, there are still many who rate it above all its successors. The conductor was a great master of what is now regarded as the old school of Beethoven performance (a damaging indictment to some listeners and a refreshing relief to others.) The orchestra was at its fabulous peak. The four lead singers, Ludwig, Vickers, Frick and Berry were each international stars of the first magnitude. The current re-issue of the set is sumptuously presented--at least by the unimpressive standards of CDs--and offered at a bargain price.
For all these reasons, the only reasonable rating is five stars.
Great as it is, however, this "Fidelio" is not above criticism. The perfect "Fidelio," in fact, remains as perpetually elusive as the perfect "Traviata."
This recording is one of a series of masterworks made under the auspices of the imperious Walter Legge, head of Artists and Repertory for EMI (and, incidentally, husband of Elizabeth Schwarzkopf.) It may be said to have begun with a series of live performances conducted by Klemperer at Covent Garden in 1961. (A live recording is available at an outrageous price from Testament.) The principal singers at Covent Garden were Sena Jurinac as Fidelio, Jon Vickers as Florestan, Gottlob Frick as Rocco and Hans Hotter as Don Pizarro. Klemperer wished to bring all of them to the recording studio but Legge had other ideas. As usual, Legge got his way, bringing over only Vickers and Frick.
Klemperer's "Fidelio" is gravely measured and monumental, but not particularly theatrical. Some parts, most notably the chorus of soldiers preceding the entrance of Don Pizarro, have justly been criticized as too slow.
Christa Ludwig was one of the great singers of the Twentieth Century. Her Leonora was exquisitely thought out and brilliantly presented. But she was a mezzo-soprano. Excellent as she undoubtedly was, she was not quite a perfect fit in a role that positively cries out for a great soprano. I am wholly in agreement with those who say that for once Legge was in error when he refused to record the luminous Sena Jurinac.
Jon Vickers was a gigantic presence. I saw him do Florestan with the San Francisco Opera. He held us all in thrall. If he had a fault, it was a tendency to over-think his parts. Here, the details and mechanisms of his characterization are just a bit too apparent--some have said too sugary--and they are slightly out of phase, I think, with Klemperer's more abstract vision. Whatever one may believe about his acting, he sings magnificently.
Gottlob Frick is probably as good as anybody who has ever essayed Papa Rocco, a basically conventional and quite tedious part, save for his big duet with Fidelio in Act II.
Walter Berry was an admirable singer and very effective as Don Pizarro, but villainous characters were not his strength as a performer. Some have held that he did not achieve the sheer malignancy that Hotter spewed so generously over Covent Garden. My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that neither of them could match Gustav Neidlinger as the hateful Pizarro.
Gerhard Unger was perfectly competent in what is effectively the throw-away part of Jaquino. Ingeborg Hallstein has been about equally praised and denounced for the youthful tremulousness she brought to Marzelline.
For those who know "Fidelio" well, this is the standard recording. For those who wish to become acquainted with an operatic wonder, this is as good an introduction as may be found.
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