the matter very little
consideration except on one point,--its morality. His high ideals, and
his innate purity of mind, caused him to dislike and condemn the sort of
story which was usually worked up into operatic libretti in those days,
in which intrigue and illicit love formed the staple material. He
expressed himself strongly on this subject, even criticising Mozart for
having set Don Giovanni to music, saying that it degraded the art. So
strongly did he feel about it that he seems to have thought almost any
libretto would do, provided the moral sentiment contained in it were
sufficiently prominent. Later, the experience which he gained with
Fidelio showed him that the libretto of an opera is indeed a very
important matter; then he went to the other extreme, and was unable to
find anything which would satisfy him, although many libretti were
submitted to him at various times during the remainder of his life. A
quantity of them were found among his papers after his death. Bouilly's
libretto Leonore, which had been set to music by two different composers
before Beethoven took it in hand, was finally selected, and Sonnleithner
was employed to translate it from the French. The name of the opera was
changed to Fidelio, but the various overtures written for it are still
known as the Leonore overtures.

Beethoven took up his quarters in the theatre again as soon as the
libretto was ready for him and went to work at it with a will. But he
was not at his best in operatic writing,--this symphonist, this creator
of great orchestral forms. The opera was an alien soil to him;
composition--never an easy matter to Beethoven, was more difficult than
ever in the case of Fidelio. The sketch-books show the many attempts and
alterations in the work, at its every stage. In addition, he was
handicapped at the outset by an unsuitable libretto. The Spanish
background, for one thing, was a clog, as his trend of thought and
sympathies were thoroughly German. But this is a slight matter compared
with the forbidding nature of the drama itself, with its prison scenes,
its dungeons and general atmosphere of gloom. One dreary scene after
another is unfolded, and the action never reaches the dignity of tragedy
nor the depth of pathos which should be awakened by the portrayal of
suffering. We are unable to feel that the two principal characters are
martyrs; as one tiresome scene succeeds another, we come to care nothing
whatever about them and are