Beethoven’s only opera is called Leonore. Or Fidelio. Now, which one?
Beethoven started working on a French libretto in 1803 that was around in Europe since the 1790s. This opera had been set by three different composers before Beethoven. The libretto was Leonore, ou l’amour conjugal (Leonore, or marital love), written by J.-N. Bouilly. The German version was adopted by Joseph Sonnleithner.
In this story a woman named Leonore dresses up as a young man called Fidelio in order to get a job at the prison of the governor, Pizzaro. She does that to save her husband Florestan, who is a political prisoner and being starved to death in the dungeons.
By the time Beethoven started his work on this opera, two other composers had produced versions of it in Italy, most notably Ferdinando Paer (whom Beethoven regarded highly). Paer’s version was called Leonore.
In order to avoid confusion with the version of Ferdinando Paer, Beethoven insisted to have a new title for his work: Fidelio.
