BBC Proms 2020

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BBC Proms: 2020: Beethoven's Leonore - a landmark performance

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Beethoven's Leonore - a landmark performance

2020

BBC Radio 3 - BBC Proms, 2020, Beethoven's Leonore - a landmark performance

Beethoven’s opera Leonore, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner at the 1996 Proms

Beethoven’s Leonore at the 1996 Proms. Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducts his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in a landmark period instrument performance.

Beethoven: Leonore
(From BBC Proms 1996, 16 August)
Beethoven’s only opera is a passionate musical protest against political oppression that also celebrates the power of human love. This performance from 1996 of the opera’s first version (it was later revised as Fidelio) was only its second ever at the Proms, and the first featuring period instruments. Sir John Eliot Gardiner favoured this earlier version of the work, conceived at a time when Beethoven was fired up by the ideals of Napoleon and the social fragmentation of society in the wake of the French Revolution. This performance came soon after the experience of recording all of Beethoven's symphonies with his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The period instruments, he said, gave the music ‘greater transparency of texture, more sharply differentiated character of the instruments and an almost visceral struggle with the musical material.'

Presented by Martin Handley.

Leonore.....Hillevi Martinpelto (soprano)
Florestan.....Kim Begley (tenor)
Rocco.....Franz Hawlata (bass)
Marzelline.....Christiane Oelze (soprano)
Jaquino.....Michael Schade (tenor)
Don Pizarro.....Matthew Best (bass)
Don Fernando.....Geert Smits (baritone)
First Prisoner.....Robert Burt (tenor)
Second Prisoner.....Colin Campbell (baritoner)
Monteverdi Choir
Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique
Sir John Eliot Gardiner (conductor)

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BBC Proms: 2020

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Beethoven's Leonore - a landmark performance

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