It is based on the textbook that Beethoven also used: Paër's “Leonora” can certainly assert itself as an independent solution alongside “Fidelio”.
Innsbruck - "I love you." But that is a lie: In dire straits she comes from Leonora`s lips, in the face of her incarcerated husband and addressed to the inflamed Marcellina, who needs her to escape. Beethoven did not go that far, he quickly let his only opera tip over into a hyper-finale that proclaimed the love of husbands and people. In contrast to Mozart, he was evidently suspicious of deeply focused, multi-faceted female characters. If so, they had to be heroines, adorable, glorified, adored.
The scene therefore doesn't happen in “Fidelio”, but in the little, albeit older, sister in “Leonora” by Ferdinando Paër. First performed in Dresden in 1804, one year before Beethoven's first version of his only opera, it is based on the same French textbook. As a result, one registers countless parallels, some of which are identical. There were repeated reanimations, including a record production that started in Munich in the late 1970s. Next attempt now as a premiere at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music; it is your contribution to the Beethoven year.
Since it was only clear nine weeks ago that this festival could take place at all, the scenic version was replaced by a semi-concert version. In the Tyrolean State Theater there are 400 instead of 750 listeners. A point of honor for Alessandro De Marchi, the conducting treasure hunter and artistic director, that every comma, every sixteenth note is played there. And listen: Paër's opus is not at eye level with the delimiting, future-oriented furor and Beethoven's theatrical setting, which is also theatrically sensitive in its ruptures. The "Leonora" is committed to the formulas of the neighboring rock, but can assert itself as an independent, musically even more closed solution.
Half-concerts in everyday clothes
One would have liked to have seen what interpretation of this the currently highly committed director Mariame Clément finds. For the Innsbruck situation she has a clever, profound solution. The orchestra on the stage, in front of it a row of chairs with desks - everything points to a concert situation. But this, it seems, is repeatedly undermined by the soloists in everyday clothes. It ranges from the loose-fitting Pizarro jacket to the Florestanos T-shirt that stretches over the biceps. The act is operatic, but without props: Leonora keeps Pizarro in check by shaping a pistol with her hands. At the end, when the united world of directors in Beethoven's choir finale gets conceptual cramps, everyone stands here at last and in concert in a row at the ramp, a lively, forefingering ensemble sounds like “Così fan tutte”.
Woman disguises herself as a male prison helper in order to free her husband, a political prisoner - this basic structure is known from Beethoven. With Paër there are different accents. In the absence of expansion by choir numbers, his “Leonora” is an intimacy, privatization of the material. Without any attitude towards revolution, it is told what happens to people when love gets to the wrong addressee - or when it only finds fulfillment after running through obstacles. Paër upgrades the Buffo couple Giachino and Marcellina, the latter is a kind of reflection of Leonora. Both arias, a telling idea, are cut almost hard together.
Paolo Fanale as Florestano outshines everyone
In Innsbruck there is the small problem that the voices of Eleonora Bellocci (Leonora) and Marie Lys (Marcellina) sound a bit too related. For both parts, Paër demands a combination of lyrical emphasis and coloratura fluency; With Marie Lys this sounds more natural, Eleonora Bellocci drives her soprano (actually appropriate for the role) into a bitter overstrain. Renato Girolami shows off his Buffo and Parlando qualities as Rocco. Carlo Allemano's autumnal drama suits Pizarro, a tenor at Paër. They are outshone by Paolo Fanale, a Florestano with a self-confident star attitude. Fanale can afford that. The concentrated drama, the fine drawing, the text handling, the fluency, the management of his rather narrow tenor, all of this succeeds in exemplary fashion. Paër also treats his Florestano to an extended dungeon aria - but also the short lament "Deh per pietade", whose Bellini-like sensitivity was rather alien to Beethoven.
Not everything is reflected in the performance of the Innsbruck Festival Orchestra. The virtues of Alessandro De Marchi, who is celebrating his 10th birthday in Innsbruck this year, are precision, a cautious sense of style, a sovereignty in dealing with the unknown. And yet there is more vehemence and color slumbering in Paër's score than the Festwochen boss would have you believe. There are also small fuzziness in the ensemble; an obviously planned recording would have to be polished. This "Leonora" deserves it.