Fidelio - schedule, program & buy tickets

Opera in two acts
Libretto by Josef Sonnleithner, Stephan von Breuning and Georg Friedrich Treitschke

In German with German and English surtitles (spoken dialog is not translated verbatim)

Christine Mielitz's production of Beethoven's Fidelio celebrated its premiere on October 7, 1989. While citizens took to the streets for democracy and human rights in front of the Semperoper, the director staged the liberation opera in a contemporary prison yard with a surveillance tower and barbed wire. Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his opera about a woman who, disguised as a man, tries to rescue her husband, who has been unjustly deported to a secret prison, under the impression of revolution, reign of terror and war.

In his opera, the heroism of Leonore stands alongside the everyday world of the prison guard Rocco, grand opera stands alongside German Singspiel. But in the end there is a liberation that Beethoven clothes in almost superhuman, utopian sounds. More than three decades after its premiere, the Dresden production of Fidelio from 1989 has lost none of its urgency.

Subject to change without notice.