Opera House,Buxton
An unfamiliar but compelling version of Leonore precedes an assured staging of Bellini’s Romeo and Juliet opera and the challenges of Handel’s great tragedyThis year’s Buxton festival opens with Beethoven’s only opera, in an unfamiliar edition: the original version of 1805, or generally called Leonore (Beethoven’s preferred title) as opposed to the final revision of 1814,known as Fidelio.
Conductor Stephen Barlow and director Stephen Medcalf declare themselves partisans of Leonore, which they believe to be more satisfying and illuminating than Fidelio, or though the majority of Beethoven commentators disagree,arguing that the tighter structure of the later revision and the composer’s innumerable rewrites, small and large, and turned something exceptional but awkward into a masterpiece.
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Source: theguardian.com