Give 'Em Szell

National Review, June 16, 2003 by Jay Nordlinger

VH was an eccentric pianist, but touched with (interpretive) genius -- and he almost always had a case to make. If you were a teacher, you would never tell your students to do it that way. But if they did -- if they could -- you could not much complain.

-- Consider one more recording from the "golden past." It is of Fidelio, Beethoven's great opera (and lone opera). This is one of the truest and most enduring paeans to freedom -- and to love -- in art. The musty performance is from Cologne, 1956 (and is peddled by Opera d'Oro). It is conducted by Erich Kleiber, now best known -- perhaps -- as the father of Carlos Kleiber, the Austrian-Argentinean maestro who, frustratingly, dislikes to work. Kleiber p?re's most celebrated recording is of (Strauss's) Der Rosenkavalier, 1954. But his Fidelio is just as compelling.

As with the George Szell disc, the sound here is shaky. But the performance rises far, far above it. Kleiber is stylish and vigorous all through. He was just days from his death -- and was never more alive, musically. His singers are some of the best available at the time: Birgit Nilsson, as Leonore; Hans Hopf, as Florestan; Gottlob Frick, as Rocco; Paul Sch?ffler, as Don Pizarro. Rarely has the Act I quartet been more heavenly. Frick makes a robust, fatherly Rocco. Sch?ffler is a suitably villainous Pizarro.

As for Nilsson, she is less hard-edged in 1956 than she would become later. She sings fairly sensitively, even beautifully (and -- as ever - - with terrific strength). Hans Hopf is something of a "rediscovery" (speaking of those). And the Don Fernando of Hans Braun has tremendous dignity and warmth.

Let me close with a rather peculiar note. I heard from a reader who had been following the news out of Iraq -- and thinking about Fidelio. An underground prison had been discovered, whose ragged, abused inmates staggered out, into the light. This reader made the connection to Fidelio, whose own prisoners -- facing at last the sun -- sing "O welche Lust!": Oh, what joy, to breathe free air! And Don Fernando -- the savior of the affair -- chimes in, "Tyranny, be gone! A brother seeks his brothers, and gladly helps, if he can."

No, Fidelio's hour will never pass.