Fidelio: Beethoven’s Hard Road to Success
Ludwig van Beethoven complained that he found it far harder to rethink himself into an old composition than to begin a new one. With reference to his single opera, Fidelio, his dedication, if not obsession, is therefore demonstrated which Beethoven produced in three versions and gave it four overtures. Beethoven had the background and aid to have produced quite a successful opera, but it seemed out of his control when it failed to bring in the masses time and time again.
The circumstances of Beethoven's life, both in Bonn and Vienna, might have been expected to encourage rather than inhibit an operatic career—or at least an attempt at one. In neither city, during Beethoven's residence, was a composer of the
"first or even second rank" writing for the stage (especially in his impressionable years)
[Dean, 123]. Opera was consistently being performed; including both old and new as well as national and imported works. In Bonn, where his father was a tenor singer,
Beethoven must have learned much of the current repertoire in his childhood. In 1783 and 1784, at the age of 12 and 13, he was employed as a cembalist in the Elector's theatre orchestra under the Kapellmeister Christian Gottlob Neefe. This service was interrupted by the disbandment of the orchestra upon the death of the Elector in April
1784. Even so, the next four years saw a number of visiting companies in Bonn, one of which may have introduced Beethoven to Gluck's Orfeo and Alceste [Dean, 123]. Two years later, on his first visit to Vienna, he had a few lessons from Mozart, whom had established a career in opera. In the winter of 1788, the Elector Maximilian Franz established a new opera company at Bonn that gave regular winter seasons in which
Beethoven played viola in the orchestra. A season lasted several months and ran for four years until its departure for Vienna in November of 1792 during part of its fifth season. The repertoire consisted mostly of light works, whether Italian opera buffa,
French opéra comique, or Southern German Singspiel. It is certain that “it included
Gluck's Die Pilgrime von Mecca, and three operas by Mozart, Die Entführung aus dem
Serial in 1788-89 and 1791-92, Don Giovanni (three performances), and Le nozze di
Figaro (four performances), both in 1789-90" [Dean, 124]. The practical experience of these scores could not have gone by without making a permanent impression on a young Beethoven.
His first ten years in Vienna would not have seen direct contact with the stage, although several theatres were in operation, as "this was not a period of Viennese operatic glory" [Dean, 124]. At the Court Theatre (Kärntnertor), “largely confined to
Italian opera, the favourite composers were Martín y Soler, Salieri, Cimarosa, Paer and
Zingarelli” [Dean, 124]. The popular German theatres were Marinelli's Leopoldstadt and
Schikaneder's Theater auf der Wieden. The leading composers were Müller, Weigl,
Süssmayr, Hoffmeister, Schenk, and Kauer. Possibly only Die Zauberflöte, which continued to draw audiences, could have won Beethoven’s respect, though he was not tempted to emulate it. Beethoven composed two arias for insertion in a revival of
Umlauf’s Die schöne Schusterin in 1706. Apart from this and the ballet Prometheus
(1801), his only tangible links with the Viennese theatre at this period are the titles of the operas from which he chose themes for variations, among them “Grétry’s Richard Cœur de Lion, Müller’s Die unterbrochene Opferfest, Weigl’s L’amour marinaro, Salieri’s
Falstaff and Süssmayr’s Soliman II” [Dean, 124]. In 1802 occurred an event that changed this picture decisively.
On March 23, 1802 Schikaneder produced Cherubini’s Lodoïska at the new
Theater an der Wien, which had replaced the Theater auf der Widen in the previous year. This was the first major opera of the French Revolution school to reach Vienna. Its success was immediate. Baron Braun, Deputy Director of the Court Theatre, went to
Paris
