The star of the show turns out to be The English Concert under conductor Douglas Boyd, who encourages everything from feather-light, pianissimo bowing from the strings to dramatically pointed timpani playing. Boyd brings a wealth of emotional colours and true suspense
David Benedict, The Stage
(TEC) bring a raw, insistent edge to the score … a dramatic, Mozartian liveliness to the numbers of Act I dealing with Marzelline’s comically unfortunate love triangle … But contrastingly, evil is well depicted with the strings’ digging into their instruments to illustrate Leonore’s horror
Curtis Rogers, Seen and Heard International
A compelling harmony of stage and pit…consistently first-class playing
Peter Quantrill, Bachtrack
The music was urged on with a kind of desperate insistence entirely appropriate to the narrative, whilst the moments of stillness and delicacy held the listener spellbound. There was particularly fine playing from the Oboe (Rachel Chaplin) and the bassoons (Catriona McDermid, Rebecca Hammond) whilst the strings heralded the glorious Act I quartet with poetic phrasing
Melanie Eskanazi, musicOMH
Crisp string articulations and plangent woodwind tones … highlighting Beethoven’s revolutionary dramatic and muscular orchestration. The band and chorus were let off their leash to thrilling effect in an electrifying finale with the “Prisoners’ Chorus” (O welche Lust) building to a radiant C-major climax.
Adrian York, London Unattached
Tickets for Fidelio are available from the Garsington Opera box office.
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