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Paul Robinson. Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio. Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xi, 191 pp. ISBN 0-521-458528 (hardcover). With its series of Cambridge Opera Handbooks and Cambridge Music Handbooks, Cambridge University Press provides a valuable service. Both series are directed towards both students and concert- or opera-goers, and are intended to serve as an introduction to, as well as a possible precursor of further study of, the work under consideration. All follow the same general organization, consisting of historical, analytical, and bibliographic/discographic sections. A Cambridge Opera Handbook will typically begin with an account of the sources and inspiration for the opera, and a delineation of the collaboration between composer and librettist. This is followed by a full synopsis, including an analysis of each number, sometimes brief, sometimes extensive. The balance of each handbook is taken up with essays on some aspect of the opera, a performance history and a bibliography and guide to further study. This is the formula followed by Paul Robinson's handbook on Fidelio. As Beethoven's only opera, Fidelio occupies a unique position in music history. For just that reason, it has been subject to much analysis, in which his compositional techniques are compared with those used in his other works, and his operatic techniques with those of Mozart on the one hand, and of French composers like Cherubini and Pierre Gaveaux, composer of the first opera on this subject, on the other. In his introduction, Robinson discusses these issues, and addresses the philosophical underpinnings of the opera. It is his own belief that the opera is an unashamedly ideological and moral statement, that the moral aspect is of far greater import than the narrative, and that belief underlies much of this book, including the synopsis chapter. Robinson often reads Beethoven's own ideals (or idealism) into those of the characters he portrays in music. This is beyond question when it comes to the music sung by Leonore or Florestan, but he is, it seems to me, on rather less solid ground when he claims that "the prisoners' chorus is the opera's ideological core" (p. 14). Certainly, this chorus is a metaphor-besides being highly effective dramatically-but surely the ideological core lies in Leonore as the personification of Beethoven's idealism. Apart from this small complaint, however, the synopsis provides a clearly explained and uncomplicated summary of the musical essence of the opera, an excellent departure point for further analysis. Such analysis is provided in chapter 6, in which Michael Tusa considers the structure, style and process(es) involved in the composition of Fidelio. After a consideration of the key structures of the three versions, Tusa addresses Beethoven's use of form and musical conventions, and shows that he complied with those in common use in Vienna, where by convention the strophic forms of Singspiel were used for simple characters like Rocco, while the more complex forms of opera seria or opera comique arias were given to the upper-class hero and heroine, Leonore and Florestan. His analysis of the music assigned Pizarro is particularly interesting: Tusa shows that in order to reflect the duality of his nature (the public upholder of order vis-a-vis the private villain), Beethoven uses regular formal structures (the outward appearance) which he then disrupts tonally, harmonically and rhythmically (the inner reality). To cite one example: Tusa offers a detailed analysis of the aria, "Ha, welch' ein Augenblick!" In the form of a conventional sonata without development in D major/minor, he shows that the aria ranges tonally, even within sections, as far as E-flat major, with a startling shift during the recapitulation from E flat to A functioning as the dominant of D. Diminished harmonies and stepwise chromatic ascents and descents in the bass serve further to blur the tonal stability. …

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Paul Robinson. Ludwig van Beethoven: Fidelio. Cambridge Opera Handbooks. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. xi, 191 pp. ISBN 0-521-45852-8 (hardcover)