Beethoven's "Fidelio"

"Of all my spiritual children, this is the one that cost me the worst birth pangs," said Beethoven of his only opera “Fidelio.” "For that reason, it is the one most dear to me." The story of one woman's heroic struggle to rescue her husband from political imprisonment, “Fidelio” occupied Beethoven for nearly a decade. He rewrote it twice to fashion a powerful, inspiring allegory of love and courage. Manfred Honeck has assembled the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh to perform, in concert version, Beethoven's “Fidelio,” in advance of his performances at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, the site of the work’s 1805 premiere.