Beethoven's Fidelio gives occasion to consider the function of the librettist, who obviously has the composer at his mercy unless the composer is prompt to get the upper hand. Mozart (q.v.) learnt betimes to bully his librettist. Beethoven did not ; and the expansion of Bouilly's pretty opera comique, Fidelio ou l'amour conjugal into the powerful Leonore (afterwards renamed Fidelio), was executed according to Beethoven's general inten tions but with many blunders as to the mise-en-scene. French opera-comique is not comic opera, but opera with spoken dialogue. It thus includes Cherubini's tragic Medee and Maul's biblical Joseph. It has a tendency (which culminates in Bizet's Carmen) to arrange that much of the music should happen more or less as it might occur in an ordinary play. For instance, neces sary antecedents may be told in "that dear old song which I am never tired of hearing," whereupon the family history follows in a ballad. Other occasions for music are the plighting of troth in a little private ceremony, the entry of a company of soldiers, and, less realistically, ordinary entries and tableau-situations in gen eral, until we recapture the Metastasio scheme. Opera, viewed from this point, lacks opportunity for great musical forms which can deal with more than one action ; but the influence of Mozart's wonderful concerted finales was not to be resisted, and Cherubini's librettists arranged that the second act in Les deux Journees, Lodoiska, and one or two other operas, should end with continuous music for something like 20 minutes, with various changes of ac tion. The last act French taste did not allow to expand, and in all French operas the end is perfunctory; whereas Mozart and Beethoven love to expatiate on the final happiness.
It is not known where the concerted finale originated, since its reputed invention by Logroscino (q.v.) is not borne out by his extant works ; but it is already fully developed in the second act of Mozart's La finta Giardiniera (written at the age of i8). In his first Singspiel, Die Entfuhrung, Mozart ends the second act with a highly developed quartet, while the whole opera ends with a vaudeville, i.e., a series of verses delivered by each character in turn, with a burden in chorus ; followed by a short movement for full chorus. But in his other Singspiel, Die Zauberflote, the finales to both acts, like those in Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fart tutte, cover so much action within their half-hour's extent that it would evidently cost Mozart little effort to extend the finale back wards over the whole act and so to achieve, without transcending his own musical language, the perfect continuity of Verdi's Fal staff. This would have suited neither his singers nor his public ; but we do not know how he might have crushed opposition if he had lived longer and had seen the possibilities of French opera, with its thrilling tales of heroic adventure.
original libretto a trio begins on the occasion of the father's giving his blessing on their engagement. And on the operatic vaudeville scale this is well enough timed. But Fidelio-Leonora's heroic project and the martyrdom of her Florestan in Pizarro's dungeon are themes too sublime for this light style of opera, which was all very well for the adventures of the hero of Les Deux Journees, carted out of Paris in his humble friend's water cart. It was the sublime themeF that attracted Beethoven; and in Leonore (as his opera was first named) his librettist, Sonnleithner, tried to expand them without the necessary recasting of the whole action. So the trio of plighted troth as begun earlier, so as to take in half of the previous conversation, which dealt with the project of getting permission for Fidelio to assist in the work of the dun geons, and with Fidelio's imperfectly suppressed excitement thereat. We thus have the music bursting into the conversation in an inexplicable way ; and two revisions barely saved the first two acts even when an experienced dramatist named Treitscke corn pressed them into the first act of Fidelio.
The rest, from the rise of the curtain on Florestan in the dun geon, was not beyond mending; and spectators who are insensi ble to its power should confine their criticisms to the costumes of the box-holders. Fidelio is one of the most important works in the history of opera; and The Messiah has not a firmer hold of the British public than Fidelio has of every class of unspoilt music-lover in Germany. The story is one of the finest ever put on the stage, and everybody in Germany knows it ; which is f or tunate, since nobody could ever make it out from the action, until it begins to explain itself in the dungeon scene. But in the first act the mystery is a mere puzzle, and even if Fidelio's disguise is as transparent as most operatic male parts for female voices, the spectator has no evidence beyond the playbill that she is other than the strangely embarrassed lover of the adoring jailor's daughter.
The difficulties of Fidelio are thus very instructive. Turn back from it to the almost nonsensical Zauberflote and observe how perfectly the comings and goings of Mozart's music explain themselves. Music begins naturally on the rise of the curtain, and stops naturally with the exits of all the characters except the youth who is lying unconscious. He revives, wonders where he is, hears a distant piping; and the approach of the bird catcher, Papageno, explains the piping and is accompanied by the orchestral introduc tion to his song. Later on, three veiled ladies give the hero a miniature portrait of the princess he is to rescue. He gazes at the portrait and falls in love ; the orchestra heaves two sighs and Tamino's love-song begins. The scene darkens, the Queen of Night appears, enthroned among stars, pours out her woes and promises her daughter to the hero. She vanishes. Daylight re turns. Tamino, wondering whether it was all a dream, is encoun tered by poor Papageno who, punished for his lies with a padlock on his mouth, can only sing Jim, hm, hmm; another perfect occasion for music, worked up in a quintet in which the three veiled ladies remove his padlock and instruct him and Tamino how to set forth on their quest. And so from point to point the happy nonsense proceeds, always right and effective in matters the mis handling of which may ruin the finest story.