st exasperating of all is the stupid
dialogue, which makes one hope that the man who wrote it died a
painful, lingering death. But, in spite of it all, Beethoven, by
writing some very beautiful music in the first act, and by rising to
an astonishing height in the prison scene and the succeeding duet, has
created one of the wonders of the music-world.

Being a glorification of woman--German woman, although Leonora was
presumably Spanish--"Fidelio" has inevitably become in Germany the
haus-frau's opera. Probably there is not a haus-frau who faithfully
cooks her husband's dinner, washes for him, blacks his boots, and
would even brush his clothes did he ever think that necessary, who
does not see herself reflected in Leonora; probably every German
householder either longs to possess her or believes that he does
possess her. Consequently, just as Mozart's "Don Giovanni" became the
playground of the Italian prima donna, so has "Fidelio" become the
playground of that terrible apparition, the Wifely Woman Artist, the
singer with no voice, nor beauty, nor manners, but with a high
character for correct morality, and a pressure of sentimentality that
would move a traction-engine. I remember seeing it played a few years
ago, and can never forget a Leonora of sixteen stones, steadily
singing out of tune, in the first act professing with profuse
perspiration her devotion to her husband (whose weight was rather less
than half hers), and in the second act nearly crushing the poor
gentleman by throwing herself on him to show him that she was for ever
his. A recent performance at Covent Garden, arranged specially, I
understand, for Ternina, was not nearly so bad as that; but still
Ternina scared me horribly with the enormous force of her Wifely
Ardour. It may be that German women are more demonstrative than
English women in public; but, for my poor part, too much public
affection between man and wife always strikes me as a little false.
Besides, the grand characteristic of Leonora is not that she loves her
husband--lots of women do that, and manage to love other people's
husbands also--but that, driven at first by affection and afterwards
by purely human compassion, she is capable of rising to the heroic
point of doing in life what she feels she must do. Of course she may
have been an abnormal combination of the Wifely Woman with the heroic
woman; but one cannot help thinking that probably she was not--that
however strong her affection