Argentinean-Israeli maestro Daniel Barenboim brought his pioneering West-Eastern Divan Orchestra to Salzburg this week for two sell-out concert performances of Beethoven s sole opera Fidelio. The choice of Fidelio, which is about freedom and oppression, could not have been more symbolic for the orchestra. In a statement handed with the program the young musicians said: We aspire to total freedom and equality between all Israelis and Palestinians. It is on this basis that we come together today to play music. The opera recounts how young Florestan is imprisoned, tortured and nearly starved to death by the brutal Pizarro for telling the truth. In a bid to find and free him, his betrothed Leonore disguises herself as a man, taking the name Fidelio. The orchestra - of musicians from Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and other countries in the Middle East - is performing Fidelio at two concerts to mark the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra s 10th birthday. The ensemble was set up by Barenboim and his friend, Palestinian writer and intellectual Edward Said, to promote coexistence and intercultural dialogue and comes together every summer in Seville, Spain, for rehearsals and talks, followed by an international concert tour. This year s preparations included a seminar on Fidelio and its broader cultural context, the relationship between Beethoven and Goya, and Beethoven and Goethe, Barenboim said. As a result, the orchestra has a much broader knowledge of this opera than regular professional orchestras , said the pianist and conductor in a program note. Beethoven took nearly a decade - from 1805 to 1814 - to write Fidelio and even then it remained very much a work in progress, with three different versions and four different overtures. It is difficult to bring off, with disparate musical styles ranging from the almost light-hearted Singspiel opening to the more serious prison scene. A key problem, particularly for non-German audiences, is the spoken dialogue between the musical numbers used to carry forward much of the action. In Salzburg, Barenboim has replaced the dialogue with a text by Said originally written for a semi-staged version in Chicago in the late 1990s that has Leonore in a monologue re-telling the story later in life, looking back and reflecting. It s ideal for a concert performance, Barenboim said in the program. As Said died in 2003, including his text was also a way of including him in the anniversary celebrations of the orchestra he helped set up, Barenboim added. For the Salzburg performances Wednesday and Saturday, Barenboim has engaged two veteran singers he has worked with before - German mezzo Waltraud Meier in the role of Leonore and British bass-baritone John Tomlinson as Florestan s jailkeeper, Rocco. New Zealand s Simon O Neill played Florestan while the rest of the cast included Slovakian soprano Adriana Kucerova as Marzelline and Swedish baritone Peter Mattei. The performance won long and generous applause from the Salzburg audience.
