Fidelio

Co-produced by ENO and the Bavarian State Opera, Munich.

In Fidelio, political prisoner Florestan is unjustly held captive by Don Pizarro, the corrupt governor of a state prison. Florestan's wife, Leonore, searches for him by assuming the disguise of a young man called Fidelio and joining the prison staff as a guard. Her rescue of Florestan offers a universal story of the power of marital love and fidelity triumphing over injustice and tyranny.

Two hundred years after its premiere, Beethoven's Fidelio continues to thrill audiences with its many echoes of the composer's symphonic works, powerful orchestral imagination and exquisite melodies. Calixto Bieito's unique vision of Beethoven's only opera explores the psychological prison of each character, in a production which is contemporary and yet abstract, and which always seeks to challenge our expectations and certainties about this much-admired opera.