Beethoven – Fidelio
Fidelio Orchestra
As a fitting end to a manic first year of existence, the Fidelio Orchestra will be putting on a production of its namesake – Beethoven’s opera Fidelio – in the intimate setting of Conway Hall. With a brilliant cast featuring Mark Bonney as Florestan and Natalya Beam as Leonore, under the expert direction of Andrew Coppin, it’s guaranteed to be an unmissable performance.
In this first-time production, the story is set in the business landscape of a multi-billion pound technology company, whose CEO, Pizzarro, is eager to get the latest product pushed into production. Florestan, an employee, has been tasked to manage the main development pipeline and does extra hours in order to get the product delivered as soon as possible. His wife, Leonore, decides to falsify her identity to join the company as a man and free Florestan from the miserable state in which he is reduced to.
The opera explores the complexities and contradictions of the contemporary business world through the music of Beethoven, who never really succeeded in his lifetime to have his Fidelio appreciated by the public. By producing this work ahead of Beethoven’s 250th birth anniversary, Fidelio Orchestra wants to re-assert the actual power of the composer’s masterwork, once again remarking how great works of art are such not because of the definitive answers they give, but because of the questions they raise.
Cast: Mark Bonney (Florestan), Natalya Beam (Leonore), Andrew Tipple (Rocco), Thorvald Blough (Pizzarro), Anna Luigi (Marzelline), Frederick Jones (Joaquino), Thomas Humphreys (Don Fernando)
Director: Andrew Coppin
Conductor: Raffaello Morales
The original German libretto has been preserved for all sung parts, but the spoken dialogues have been replaced by a narration in English by director Andrew Coppin.