The performance material of Beethoven’s Fidelio, available at Bärenreiter · Alkor, is an advance publication compiled not from all, but from the major sources of the opera. It goes without saying that the standards of scholarly critical editions have been applied when converting these sources into the musical text. Still, uniform rules have not always been found for the opera's particular complex of sources or its generic and textual peculiarities. Most importantly, until now there has been no complete critical report to provide information on the sources, particularly regarding editorial decisions and the origins of certain alternative readings. Once these steps have been completed, Fidelio will appear in vol. IX/4 of the Complete Edition.
Beethoven's opera underwent an unusually long and complicated gestation that is reflected in the way its text has come down to us. This poses a variety obstacles to any scholarly edition. From 1804 to 1814 Beethoven worked on the opera for a total of roughly three years, with several interruptions of various lengths. Many of its numbers were worked out in two or more versions that he revised and corrected over and over again. The first performance took place in the Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805. Its failure led Beethoven to rework the opera and present a new version at the end of March 1806. By then he had shortened the two finales and made many minor corrections and alterations. But only three of the numbers were freshly composed: the march accompanying the entrance of Pizarro, the recitative “Gott, welch Dunkel hier” preceding Florestan's aria, and the overture, which quickly established itself in the concert hall independently of the opera as the "Third Leonore Overture." It was in this version that Leonore oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe, as the opera was then known, first achieved success. However, due to a disagreement with the theater's director, Beethoven withdrew the piece after the second performance.
Eight years were to pass before an opportunity arose for another performance. For this third production of 1814 Beethoven again revised the score, indeed more heavily than before. Two of the ensemble numbers were dropped altogether; the two arias for the main protagonists, Leonore and Florestan, were radically reworked; and the two finales were largely written afresh. Finally, Beethoven produced a fourth overture, in E major, that has become known as the “Fidelio Overture.” Beethoven complained about the tedious process of revision in a letter of early March 1814 to his (third!) librettist, Friedrich Treitschke: “The score of the opera has been copied out as wretchedly as anything I have ever seen; I have to check every single note (it was probably stolen). In short, I assure you, dear Treitschke, that this opera will earn me a martyr's crown …” Beethoven passed many of the thorns in this crown to the opera's editors, who now have to examine every single note, not only in the “wretchedly copied” originals (which are not so very wretched after all), but also in his barely legible corrections.
The time-consuming task of sifting through and sorting out the mares-nest of manuscripts and alterations was carried out in the Beethoven Archive over the last few years. The initial result was the reconstruction of Leonore of 1806, the earlier version of Fidelio. Leonore served as the basis of Beethoven's final revision of 1814 and is therefore a primary source for the musical text of Fidelio. All sections, parts, notes, and dynamic or agogic details that were left unchanged must agree with the earlier version.
When making his revision, Beethoven primarily used copyists' manuscripts prepared from Leonore in 1806. It was here that he entered his changes. In a few numbers, such as the terzetto “Euch werde Lohn in bessem Welten” and the quartet “Er sterbe, doch er soll erst wissen,” he also resorted to earlier versions from the premiere. These copyists' manuscript, covered with corrections, therefore constitute the second primary source and thus represent what might be called the “autograph” of Fidelio. Rather than coming down to us as a contiguous score, however, they were dispersed as manuscripts of separate numbers. Today most of them are located in the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, although several can be found in the Beethoven House, Bonn.
Genuine autographs, that is, manuscripts of the final version of Fidelio written in Beethoven's own hand, exist only for those pieces that were composed afresh in 1814: the overture, Leonore's recitative “Abscheulicher, wo eilst du hin?” the latter of the first finale (from Pizarro's entrance), Florestants recitative and aria, and the entire second finale. It goes without saying that these autographs likewise belong among the work's primary sources.
One particular problem arose from the fact that Beethoven himself did not hand the score of his opera to the printers. It was customary in his day to rearrange stage works for each new production, shortening or lengthening them as necessary and adapting their vocal parts to suit the abilities of the singers. Opera scores were therefore rarely printed until well into the nineteenth century. Although Beethoven, as is well known, showed little concern for the performability of his music, he allowed Fidelio to be circulated only in manuscript, namely, in handwritten copies that he himself commissioned but neglected. Instead of the authorized final redaction that he gave to his instrumental works, thereby helping to fom our notions of a definitive musical text, Fidelio has come down to us entirely in handwritten sources which, though more ambiguous in many respects, are more fully in keeping with operatic tradition and more conducive to interpretation and the exigencies of performance. Only a few of these contemporary copyists' manuscripts have survived. One of them stems from the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna and was evidently used at the premiere. It has, accordingly, been given pride of place in our edition. For the time being, the other copyists' manuscripts, dating from 1814, have been consulted only in cases of serious doubt.
Unlike the symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas – indeed, unlike any other of Beethoven's famous works – Fidelio has not been subjected to thorough scrutiny since the first scholarly edition appeared in the Old Gesamtausgabe 140 years ago. Every subsequent edition has been a reprint of the Gesamtausgabe volume, either unaltered or with negligible departures. No attempt was made to produce a thorough revision of the musical text in order to reflect changes in research findings or to accommodate present-day demands for fidelity to the original. As a result, the mistakes of the Gesamtausgabe – and more importantly the nineteenth century's view of Beethoven – have been handed down from 1864 to the present day.
In sum, our new score of Fidelio differs audibly from the ones known to date, not through the discovery of new arias or ensembles, but through the correction of myriad details of articulation, dynamics, sonority, scoring, and even quite specific pitches. In many passages we were able to correct readings from earlier editions, especially in those numbers for which the Gesamtausgabe availed itself of Beethoven's barely legible autograph manuscripts as its principal source. For example, a number of wrong notes in the woodwinds were corrected in the overture. Similarly, groups of bars omitted altogether from the two finales, again in the woodwinds, have been reinstated and appear here for the first time in print. One aspect of importance to the orchestral sound is the use of the contrabassoon.
Beethoven employed the contrabassoon in eight numbers of his Leonore of 1806. All previous editions of Fidelio present the instrument in three numbers. In fact, however, Beethoven used the distinctive timbre of the contrabassoon in only one number of the 1814 version: Rocco and Leonore's “Graveside Duet” in Act 2.
Often seemingly insignificant mistakes in the instructions to the performer have posed an obstacle to understanding. One example, found in all sources from Leonore to the performance score, occurs in the introduction to Act 2, where the words “Hier wird aufgezogen” (“to be drawn here”) appear above bar 31. In other words, this introduction is meant to serve literally as an “overture”: it is played with the curtain down, preparing the mood and introducing the dungeon scene that follows rather than illustrating a visible stage set. Not until the Old Gesamtausgabe (and consequently all later editions) was this stage direction omitted, thereby obscuring what the music of the introduction was meant to depict.
Our edition is accompanied by a newly engraved vocal score published by Bärenreiter in Kassel. The latter contains, in the vocal parts, notes on the execution of appoggiaturas, i.e. the cadential suspensions at the end of each verse. Proper execution of appoggiaturas often gives a completely new twist to the projection and melodic flow of the music. Recent performances of Fidelio have revealed that singers and conductors are still uncertain about these basic rules of execution. It therefore seemed advisable to include appropriate instructions in the vocal score.
Helga Lühning