# Fidelio and the pesky Leonore #3 Overture!



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I read that Beethoven had intended for the finale of Fidelio to start within 7 seconds of the last note of the Leonore and Florestan duet. A practice was begun to insert the Leonore #3 overture in between these two parts to accommodate the scene change (from dungeon to prison parade grounds). This I could understand in live performances, yet there are ways to cleverly make that scene change happen fast as in the DVD with Nylund and Kaufmann by having a curtain lift in the back of the dungeon scene exposing the new scene for the finale.

At any rate, I remove the Leonore #3 overture from all my folders before playing them on my MP3 player or burning discs for the car. I would remove the overture from the DVDs but it is probably not easy to do, so instead simply skip over the overture.

Oops: Third option should be Leonore #3, not #4.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I stress efficiency. Play the Leonore #3 and skip the opera.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

KenOC said:


> I stress efficiency. Play the Leonore #3 and skip the opera.


Ah, you had to get the one option I didn't list. (BTW, that is another obnoxious avatar you have there.)


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Apparently most of the people viewing this thread are beyond the last option to the point of "couldn't care less" and so do not even bother to vote. Ok so at this time about 70 apparently "couldn't care less" and of those who posted, you Ken, and I do care, but at opposite ends of the spectrum. 

So far though, among those who voted the poll is showing unanimous opposition to the disruptive insertion of the overture.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

I voted "I don't like it, but live with it."

It unnecessarily disrupts the dramatic flow.


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## Granate (Jun 25, 2016)

I'm in the middle of my Fidelio challenge and I really like the performing version with the No.3 overture before the finale. I have too much Wagner in my brain to find where is the "dramatic flow" in Fidelio's recitatives. For me Leonore No.3 inserted improves the experience, but also...



KenOC said:


> I stress efficiency. Play the Leonore #3 and skip the opera.












This one inserts the overture before the finale. The WPO and Furtwängler give life to this work.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Leanora number three was played traditionally in opera houses to give time for the scene change between the dungeon scene and the finale which is set in the courtyard. Bernstein actually weaves it into the end of the duet. Works fine to me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I'm not an opera fan but have to ask: Why not use the Leonore #3 to open the opera and consign the Fidelio Overture, which has no themes from the actual opera, to the collected Beethoven overtures CDs along with the Ruins of Athens, Nameday, and other such miscellany?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

KenOC said:


> I'm not an opera fan but have to ask: Why not use the Leonore #3 to open the opera and consign the Fidelio Overture, which has no themes from the actual opera, to the collected Beethoven overtures CDs along with the Ruins of Athens, Nameday, and other such miscellany?


Barenboim did something like that, but he opens with Leonore #2. He also swiched the first two arias back to the earlier order and did not include the dialog parts. Leonore #1 and #3 and Fidelio overtures are also included at the end as extra tracks.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

I love Lenore #3 before the finale. I grew up with it and it's so unbelievably exciting that I have always felt a hole when its not there....a BIG hole! Almost worse was Leinsdorf who took away the ending by blending it into the final scene without interuption. I'm new to this blog stuff and not sure how clean you have to be but the absence of that final climax...?? I've read the stated opinion that it's just wrong to include #3 at that spot and wondered how Bohm, and Haitink and Tennstedt had made such terrible decisions. Fidelio is not, to my mind, an organic masterpiece...not a cohesive whole that leads on seamlessly or even propulsively to the end. It's a mixed bag of highs and not-so-highs. For all of the beauty and power of the quartet and the chorus and Florestan's aria we also get Rocco's stuff and Absheulichers "almost" greatness and Pizarro's cartoonish bad man. One more high, the biggest of all, doesn't strike me as wrong at all.


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