Performance on 3 - Performance on 3: Proms 2009 - Prom 50: Beethoven's Fidelio

From the BBC Proms 2009 season, Petroc Trelawny presents Daniel Barenboim conducting a concert performance of Beethoven's Fidelio - the composer's only opera, which is an impassioned defence of freedom and justice. With a star-studded cast, the work is sung in German but with an English narration devised by the scholar and historian Edward Said. The opera's themes are given a particular poignancy by the participation of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra - the ground-breaking group founded ten years ago by Barenboim and Said which brings together young Israeli and Arab musicians and continues to serve as a beacon of trust, understanding and dialogue between nations in conflict. Beethoven: Fidelio (concert performance; sung in German, with English narration by Edward Said) Leonore/narrator ...... Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano) Florestan ...... Simon O'Neill (tenor) Don Pizarro ...... Gerd Grochowski (bass-baritone) Rocco ...... Sir John Tomlinson (bass) Marzelline ...... Adriana Kucerova (soprano) Jacquino ...... Stephen Rugamer (tenor) Don Fernando ...... Viktor Rud (baritone) BBC Singers Geoffrey Mitchell Choir West-Eastern Divan Orchestra Daniel Barenboim (conductor).