03.10.2024

ELEANOR LYONS as Leonore in her house debut at the Semperoper Dresden

On 7 October 1989, Christine Mielitz's production of Beethoven's Fidelio celebrated its premiere at the Semperoper Dresden. While the citizens took to the streets in front of the building for democracy and human rights, the director presented Beethoven's ‘liberation opera’ in a contemporary prison yard with a surveillance tower and barbed wire. In his opera, the heroism of Leonore stands alongside the everyday world of the prison guard Rocco, while 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.

After appearing as Leonore with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Simone Young and soon to be heard with the Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid on 20 and 22 September as part of the second concert performances of Fidelio, Eleanor Lyons is now lending her voice to Beethoven's heroine in this Dresden revival, making her house debut at the Semperoper.

We wish Eleanor a big toi toi toi!