The themes in Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, resonate with our modern justice system. Over 200 years later prisoners have adapted the opera. Compelling story from NPR:
In this updated version of Fidelio staged by New York City’s Heartbeat Opera, the main character is Stan, a Black Lives Matter activist who has been thrown into solitary confinement. His wife, Leah, tries to rescue him. The music is still sung in German, but the spoken parts are in English.
In person, this production is small: there’s just a handful each of instrumentalists and singers on stage at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Daniel Schlosberg, Heartbeat’s co-musical director, strips the full orchestra down to just two pianos, two cellos, two French horns and a percussionist. The effect is strikingly intimate and imaginative, texturally effective, and also slightly claustrophobia-inducing — not out of place in a prison.)
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