1805
The playbill for the first performance of the final version of Fidelio, Vienna, 23 May 1814.Image: Druckerei Wiener Hoftheater · Public domainculture · Europe
Beethoven’s Fidelio has its first night
Beethoven’s only opera, the story of a wife who disguises herself as a man to free her husband from a political prison, was first performed at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 20 November 1805. Napoleon’s troops had occupied the city a week earlier, and the audience was largely French officers. The opera failed and was withdrawn after only a few performances. Beethoven revised it in 1806 and again in 1814, when the final version triumphed, and it has become one of the great operas about freedom.
Source: Beethoven-Haus Bonn: Fidelio, opera in two (originally three) acts, op. 72 ↗
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