Fidelio review – Kratzer’s iconoclastic take turns Beethoven into something it’s not

Royal Opera House, London
Directorial tweaks weaken the opera’s fervour and idealism, but Jennifer Davis’s Leonore and Chrstina Gansch’s Marzelline both impressed and in the pit, Alexander Soddy keeps things brisk

More than 200 years on, the most remarkable thing about Beethoven’s Fidelio remains its prison setting. Even in our supposedly more enlightened world, prisons are out of sight and mind. This enduring complacency forms the main target of Tobias Kratzer’s production for the Royal Ballet and Opera, but it is achieved by turning Beethoven’s hymn to the triumph of hope and love into something it is not.

The first half is set more or less in period. Kratzer moves the setting from autocratic Spain to revolutionary France, with additions to the spoken dialogue so as to insert his political points. The heroine’s cross-dressing disguise as Fidelio is rumbled early too, pushing Marzelline, the jailer’s daughter, into a more forward role in the drama. There is also a horse on stage – always a bad idea.

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