There's no doubting the wisdom of Beethoven's revisions to his only opera, a work that we know in its final incarnation as Fidelio.
The original version (which now goes under the composer's preferred title, Leonore, to distinguish it from Fidelio, is not as dramatically tight, and it rather labours its message in places where Fidelio is altogether more focused and to the point.
There's no doubting, either, the fact that Leonore will always retain a special fascination. The insight into Beethoven's process of revision and rejection that comes from comparing the two versions is highly interesting in itself. And, on top of that, the earlier version includes music that it would be a shame to lose entirely.
Welsh National Opera's production of Leonore, sung in very variable German and seen for just a single night at the Grand Opera House in Belfast last Friday, has a stark and simple set by Christian Fenouillat (essentially no more than three angled flats with which Christophe Forey's lighting works minor miracles), period costumes by Agostino Cavalca, and a directing style by Patrice Caurier and Moshe Leiser that veers between naturalism and grand guignol.
Franzita Whelan's Leonore conveys a palpable and credible apprehension. She is, after all, a woman disguised as a man, working in a prison in the hope of rescuing her incarcerated husband. Vocally she is edgy and pressured, her heavy vibrato smoothing out, laser-like when Beethoven drives her to the top of her range. Donald McIntyre is a humane Rocco, a jailer worn by intimidation who yet retains his sense of values. Robert Hayward's evil Don Pizarro is all pent-up anger, and makes a stronger vocal impression in this production than the forces of good represented by the liberating intervention of Timothy Mirfin's Don Fernando, or the shackled Florestan of Brendan McBride.
The Marzelline of Natalie Christie (a singer who, like Whelan, featured as a prizewinner in the 1997 Veronica Dunne Singing Competition) is the one presence who seems entirely apt, the vocally sweet innocent who has the misfortune to fall for the disguised Leonore.
Anthony Negus conducts with Beethovenian thrust, and the WNO chorus, as soldiers dispersing on Don Pizarros orders, provide the evening's single most arresting visual.
