CONVERSATIONS with HILDEGARD BEHRENS

This conversation took place on the occasion of the release of Ms. Behrens' historic live recording of BEETHOVEN'S FIDELIO with the legendary conductor KARL BÖHM (a Gramophone Magazine Editor's Choice - Feb '02).

FF: So one could say then that part of Beethoven's genius was that he could meld the lightness of the then popular Singspiel and the drama of opera seria so that the resulting whole became infinitely much greater than the sum of its parts?

HB: Absolutely.

FF: Like all of your other signature roles, Fidelio is not one for the faint of heart - did you know early on that you were going to sing the role? What makes the role and the music special to you?

HB: I knew from my studio days in Düsseldorf where I heard a stage rehearsal of Fidelio that this was my role. And the name Fidelio by itself always had an emotional ring in my soul.

FF: You've been hailed as "the most moving, eloquent and accomplished Leonore of our day," (just as the bearers of the esteemed Lotte Lehmann Ring before you - Leonie Rysanek and Lotte Lehmann herself - were in their days). And you performed the role in a succession of acclaimed productions that included Vienna, Bonn, Paris, Prague, and Budapest in addition to those already mentioned and those we may have missed. Were these productions widely different from one another?

HB: Yes, widely. I have sung Fidelio in both Eastern and Western countries, and it seems that this opera tempts many directors with very different political backgrounds and from opposite regimes to use the message of Fidelio to advance their own views and ideologies. I don't think Fidelio is that ad libitum and that available.

FF: And for each production did you have to adjust your interpretation of the role, both musically and dramatically, to the idiosyncracies of the stage and music director? Was this difficult to do, given that one production almost literally came on the heels of another?

HB: My interpretation of Leonore has not changed with the different productions. I think it became more focused and economical, but not changed. Leonore's character is defined by her actions and how she grows under pressure and danger beyond herself. Overwhelmed by compassion, Leonore decides to save the prisoner no matter who he is and to risk her life for him. That is the moment when the frame of conjugal love bursts into universal love and reaches cosmic dimensions, a quantum leap, so to speak.

FF: Beethoven's first singers described the opera as being unsingable in places. His Fidelio/Leonore, Anna Milder, complained that Abscheulicher... had "cruel intervals" and begged him to make changes (which he refused to do). What did she mean by this - in what sense would intervals become cruel, and did you find yourself agreeing with her on this point? Great singers such as yourself make Fidelio sound easy. Musically, how difficult or how challenging is the role?

HB:I don't think that the intervals are much more cruel than Fiordiligi's or Donna Anna's.* The tessitura** is high especially in the dungeon scene - it moves around the passagio which is the most delicate range for the voice and that plus the dramatic input, the dramatic "screw" - like a torrent- makes it difficult. If you say that I make it sound easy, that's a wonderful compliment.

FF: We've noticed that in the case of Fidelio sometimes the recitatives are cut in various parts and at times big chunks of spoken dialogue are omitted. Why is this? Is this the conductor's prerogative and thus an indication that the he considers them extraneous, inessential to the dramatic development of the opera and therefore dispensable? Does frequent shifting between singing and the spoken word become problematic to the singer at some point so that he/she actually welcomes omissions in the recitatives?

HB: It is interesting to know that Otto Klemperer in his Covent Garden production, which I sang later in 1976, insisted on as much of the spoken text as possible. It is difficult, but possible and worthwhile. The text is beautiful, when spoken with a genuine natural pathos; they are bridges between the monumental musical numbers. The melodrama before Rocco's and Leonora's duet is fantastic in its beauty and we see that Beethoven uses a whole range of declamation - without music, with underlying music and as sung music. I did not ever find it a problem to shift from one to the other. For some singers who might have a heavy accent when speaking prose, it might be a problem. But I think a general problem of theater in our days is a fear of pathos.

FF: The program notes to the Böhm/Behrens Fidelio CD state that Böhm, following the practice started by Mahler, always performed the Leonore Overture No. 3 as an interlude between the scenes of the second act, apparently convinced that the overture's proper place is within the opera itself - quite unlike those who believe its deserved home is the concert hall and no other. Where do you come down on this issue? Do you share the critical sentiment that the overture's inclusion diminishes the dramatic impact of the final scene?

HB: The authentic version is without the Leonore 3. It is a drama happening in one day with crescendo and accelerando under pressure of time and growing danger until it bursts out of Florestan's and Leonore's jubilant duet into the utopian finale.

Mahler used music to fill the time needed to change the sets, and it has become a tradition. In our production in Munich with Götz Friedrich, Friedrich interpreted the overture as a "Rückblende" - a kind of flashback we may experience while facing death. He used parts of an earlier version of Beethoven's Fidelio in which Rocco grabs Leonore's pistol; she collapses in desperation and sinks into Florestan's arm sobbing, "Everything is lost now; he took my gun." The duet has not an overall happy end to it, yet it is the most intimate, deepest ecstasy to be together again, even if only for the last few moments. They embrace in a coma-like exhaustion. At that point the overture made beautiful sense, and when the curtain slowly closed in the middle of it, it was like "Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt." (Where thy gentle wings abide) from the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. And yet it was not intended by the composer.

FF: This live recording with Böhm is a gift to us listeners because it has captured the excitement and most all the nuances of the actual performance. Indeed, listening to the glorious music and hearing the thunderous applause and even the stage noises are the next best thing to being there. The added human dimension adds up to a unique sense of enjoyment which one does not always feel with the studio recordings which at times can sound overly engineered. Do you have any strong feelings on the issue of live vs studio recordings?

HB: I always prefer live recordings without exception, for these exact reasons.

FF: Now to the desert island question. Well, not exactly.... If some Supreme Impresario asked humankind to share the world's most important masterpieces with other intelligent beings in the universe, should Fidelio be one of them?

HB: Most certainly.

FF: Thank you, Ms. Behrens, for this precious gift of time and insight. You have made this day very special. Maybe some day we should talk again and focus exclusively on your own unique thoughts about Beethoven's Fidelio, i.e. the opera itself?

HB: With pleasure.

* Soprano roles in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni, respectively.

** Tessitura - Italian term for "texture" describing the average vocal range of an operatic role. If a role contains one or two isolated high notes, but is generally written around the middle of a singer's range, the role is said to be of medium tessitura