f a State Prison Herr Meier.
_Florestan_, prisoner Herr Demmer.
_Leonora_, his wife, under the name of _Fidelio_ Fraeulein Milder.
_Rocco_, chief jailer Herr Rothe.
_Marcellina_, his daughter Fraeulein Mueller.
_Jaquino_, turnkey Herr Cache.
_Captain of the Guard_ Herr Meister.
_Prisoners, Guards, People_.

The action passes in a State prison in Spain, a few leagues from
Seville. The piece can be procured at the box-office for fifteen
kreutzers.

During this first season the opera was performed three times and then
withdrawn. Breuning reduced it to two acts, and two or three of the
musical numbers were sacrificed, and in this form it was played twice
at the Imperial Private Theatre and again withdrawn. On these
occasions it had been given under Beethoven's favorite title,
"Leonore." In 1814 Treitschke revised it, and it was produced at the
Kaernthnerthor Theatre, Vienna, May 23, of that year, as "Fidelio,"
which title it has ever since retained. Its first performance in Paris
was at the Theatre Lyrique, May 5, 1860; in London, at the King's
Theatre, May 18, 1832; and in English at Covent Garden, June 12, 1835,
with Malibran in the title-role. Beethoven wrote four overtures for
this great work. The first was composed in 1805, the second in 1806,
the third in 1807, and the fourth in 1814. It is curious that there
has always been a confusion in their numbering, and the error remains
to this day. What is called No. 1 is in reality No. 3, and was
composed for a performance of the opera at Prague, the previous
overture having been too difficult for the strings. The splendid
"Leonora," No. 3, is in reality No. 2, and the No. 2 is No. 1. The
fourth, or the "Fidelio" overture, contains a new set of themes, but
the "Leonora" is the grandest of them all.

The entire action of the opera transpires in a Spanish prison, of
which Don Pizarro is governor and Rocco the jailer. The porter of the
prison is Jacquino, who is in love with Marcellina, daughter of Rocco,
and she in turn is in love with Fidelio, Rocco's assistant, who has
assumed male disguise the better to assist her in her plans for the
rescue of her husband, Florestan, a Spanish nobleman. The latter, who
is the victim of Don Pizarro's hatred because he had thwarted some of
his evil designs, has been imprisoned by