The opposite tenor function is extra herculean: Florestan, sung on the Met by David Butt Philip with ardent tirelessness matched solely by his dramatic bravery. He enters with a excessive G, uncovered as soon as the orchestra drops out after a beat. There isn’t a fermata within the rating, however Philip held the notice, much less to point out off than to hint an arc of pathetic anguish to full-voiced despair.
René Pape was again because the warden Rocco, which he sang when Flimm’s staging was new. After 1 / 4 century, Pape’s sound could also be a bit smaller, however it was nonetheless heat, in addition to applicable for a loyal employee keen, towards his higher judgment, to observe the sadistic orders of Pizarro. In that function, the bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny had a loud, reverberating talking voice, equally penetrating when he sang, that slowly revealed itself as posturing bluster; he stays one of many nice appearing skills on the Met.
In Flimm’s manufacturing, Pizarro is a vaguely outlined tyrant who solutions to and fears the next, distant authority. It’s intentionally unspecific, with particulars plucked from oppressive regimes of current historical past: chilly Soviet structure; discarded sneakers piled as if in a focus camp; khaki uniforms of a banana republic; a monument, eerily of our second, which will or might not be giving a Nazi salute.
Beethoven’s opera is gorgeous if flawed as theater, with political idealism that’s extra admirable than resonant. However Flimm, who died in 2023, discovered a approach to make it work and, most impressively, communicate to the audiences of every revival in numerous methods.
In the course of the Iraq Battle, the toppling of a dictator’s monument within the finale felt ripped from the headlines. With a rightward swing all over the world right now, there appears to be a warning in its “Zone of Curiosity”-like juxtaposition of the mundane and the monstrous; flowers are trimmed and dinner is served as prisoners look on, in a portrait of complicity and opportunism.
Most chillingly, Flimm turns Beethoven’s celebratory finale right into a warning. The officers who’ve simply obeyed Pizarro now cheer his execution, whereas members of the general public menacingly wave knives within the air. Flimm, a German born throughout World Battle II, knew that tyrants are harmful, however so are people who find themselves all too blissful to do as they’re advised.
Fidelio
By way of March 15 on the Metropolitan Opera, Manhattan; metopera.org.
