FIDELIO - SCANDURRA

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Copertina

FIDELIO

PROJECT

Name: : Fidelio

Location:
Staatsoper, Berlino 1995
Théâtre du Châtelet, Parigi 1995
Gerusalemme 1996
PalaFenice al Tronchetto, Venezia 1998

Year: 1994–1998

Typology: : Set up

In the staging curated by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, Alessandro Scandurra designs a perspective box within which the prison cells, the scenic core of Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio, open up.

Directed by Stephane Braunschweig and conducted by Daniel Barenboïm, the staging debuted at the Staatsoper in Berlin in 1995 and was restaged in Paris, Jerusalem, and Venice.

A strictly white scenography frames the conjugal love between Florestan and Léonore, ready to disguise herself as a man - taking the name of Fidelio - to redeem her unjustly imprisoned husband. With strong political implications, the opera is set in a neutral and abstract environment, amplifying its dramatic timelessness.

The cypresses, trees always associated with the cult of the dead and symbol of immortality, are the only natural elements that occupy the scene, and their typically tapered foliage alludes to the proximity between the world of the living and the dead, recalling all the victims of abuses of power.

Private and collective tragedy converge towards a single vanishing point that holds the scene together and determines its depth. The predominantly white prison is contrasted by the red uniforms of the prisoners, designed by costume designer Bettina Walter.