Fidelio - Review of 2023 Canadian Opera Company Production

After a 14-year hiatus, the Canadian Opera Company brings back Fidelio, in a redoubtable production from San Francisco Opera directed by Matthew Ozawa and conducted by Johannes Debus. It has the vocal strength of the main singers and the powerful set and production designs of Alexander Nichols in a production that deserves to be seen and enjoyed.
Fidelio, as everyone knows, starts as a comic opera, albeit set in a jail, where the jail employee Jaquino (Josh Lovell) pursues Marzellina (Anna-Sophie Neher) with proposals of marriage. She is the daughter of the Chief Jailer Rocco (Dimitry Ivashchenko) and she rejects Jaquino because she is in love with Fidelio. The concern with love, marriage and money takes a sudden and uncomic turn when we learn that Fidelio is in fact Leonore (Miina-Liisa Varela), the wife of Florestan (Clay Hilley) a political prisoner and the victim of Don Pizzaro (Johannes Martin Kranzle), the evil Governor of the prison who wants to get rid of Florestan permanently.
We are rooting for Leonore to free Florestan and the prisoners to serve us with a glorious Ode to Freedom that we hear in act one and again in a blaze of splendour at the end of the opera. The COC Chorus gives a stunningly rousing performance.
Lovell, Neher and Ivanchenko carry us through the domestic part of the opera with aplomb as we await the more serious business that Leonore is engaged in and the dark side of the opera represented by Don Pizarro. Miina-Liisa Varela has a lovely voice and in the uniform of a modern jail guard with a bullet-proof vest she is able to pretend that she is a man with our approval.
Tenor Clay Hilley as Florestan, kept in the dark dungeon and almost starved, begins his great aria “Gott! Welch Dunkel hier” (“O God! How dark it is!”) softly and rises to its vocal height. A gorgeous rendition. He then sings a beautiful melody where he imagines seeing Leonore (whose image is in fact projected behind him) leading him to heaven. We witness the great joy of the opera when the two finally recognize each other. Sheer magic.
Ozawa and Nichols have set the opera in a modern American prison. The huge set, placed on a revolving stage resembles an oversized prison with its bars and gates. This is a fitting place for torture and murder in the hands of the suave baritone Kranzle. But all will be solved by Minister Don Fernando (sung by bass Sava Vemic) who arrives just in time to the joy of all. The costumes by Jessica Jahn, as I indicated, resemble those of American police officers or prison guards with guns and bullet-proof vests.
The COC Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Debus delivers Beethoven’s lyrical and heroic music splendidly and round off a marvelous production.
A superb night at the opera.

Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven in a production from the San Francisco Opera opened on September 29 and will be performed seven times until October 20, 2023, on various dates at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario. www.coc.ca

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