The staging repeatedly undermined a strong cast capable of meeting many of Beethoven's extreme vocal challenges. Once soprano Christine Goerke got past the difficult slow section of "Abscheulicher!", she sang with powerful projection and searing accuracy. And she was a touching presence. Tenor Michael Hendrick's voice cracked on a couple of high notes (the character is, after all, in extremis), and his Florestan didn't seem all that happy to see Leonore, but he was otherwise plausible and even admirable. Bass Andrew Funk was a sympathetic, warm-voiced Rocco, baritone Scott Bearden a convincingly villainous Don Pizarro (he was booed too, but I'm sure as a sign of his effectiveness). Tenor Jason Ferrante and minxish soprano Meredith Hansen were capable comic figures. And as Don Fernando, the rescuing minister (or archbishop?), veteran baritone Robert Honeysucker deserved the big hand he got, both for his noble, resonant singing and for having to appear in an over-the-top (not a figure of speech) mitre and acres of hyacinth-and-gilt robes.
The superb chorus deserves special praise. The hushed Prisoners' Chorus was the most moving scene in the production. Gil Rose led it with subtlety and graceful restraint. Elsewhere, Rose and his orchestra never quite settled into conveying Beethoven's urgency. The famous Fidelio Overture seemed tame. For a few minutes, though, because it was played with the curtain down and not staged (a cliché of so many opera productions these days), I had hopes that this time the music would be the prime mover. I was wrong. As they used to say during the Spanish Inquisition: "Oy vey!"
Related:
Schnozzola!, John Harbison plus 10, Heavy metal: Opera Boston’s Cardillac, More 
- Schnozzola!
By the time you read this, you've either seen or missed one of Boston's most exciting opera productions, Opera Boston's brilliant version of Shostakovich's The Nose .
- John Harbison plus 10
Classical music in Boston is so rich, having to pick 10 special events for this winter preview is more like one-tenth of the performances I'm actually looking forward to.
- Heavy metal: Opera Boston’s Cardillac
One of the major musical events of the season, Opera Boston’s New England premiere of Paul Hindemith’s Cardillac, was upstaged by the depressing announcement by BSO managing director Mark Volpe, just before the first of the BSO’s four performances of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, that James Levine was not going to conduct.
- BMOP and Mark Morris
As the Globe 's Jeremy Eichler pointed out in his review of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project's season-ending concert — called "Apollo's Fire" — referring to the program note by the BSO's Assistant Director of Program Publications Robert Kirzinger, the term "classical music" has become so all-inclusive that it doesn't have much at all to do with ancient "classical" art.
- Some good musical news in troubled musical times
What a turbulent time we've been having in Boston's musical life.
- Levine resigns
I’m heartbroken. I’ve just heard that James Levine, after another serious setback to his health, has resigned as the BSO’s music director, a year before his contract was scheduled to expire.
- Following Levine's departure, the BSO picks up the pieces
This past week, James Levine ended his BSO tenure after seven seasons, citing challenges regarding his health and the "ensuing absences they have forced." Since leaving Symphony Hall almost five years ago, I've been watching the Levine saga unfold, gritting my teeth with every notice of malady and ensuing cancellation.
- Boston Baroque's Rameau, Opera Boston's Donizetti, BSO's Berlioz, the Met's new Walküre
As the season wound down, one of the most applauded concerts was Boston Baroque's semi-staged version of Jean-Philippe Rameau's early 18th-century extravaganza, the "opéra-ballet" Les Indes galantes (roughly, "The Romantic Indies").
- The BSO opens its summer home without Levine, but with Mark Morris & Yo-Yo Ma
It was especially sad that Levine, who cancelled his entire Tanglewood season and then resigned as BSO music director as of September (he just underwent another major surgery on his spine), couldn't lead this particular program.
- Anne-Sophie Mutter, Susan Davenny Wyner, and Courtney Lewis
The season-opening concerts I've been going to have made me think about two kinds of musicians: those whose performances become transparent, who allow the listener into the heart of the music; and those for whom their own abilities — technical marvels — seem an end, not a means to a higher end.
- Fall Classical Preview: The power of music
Here’s my Top 10 list, in chronological order, of some of the season’s most appealing and important classical music events: symphonies, chamber music, operas.
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Topics:
Classical
, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Gil Rose, Sarah Caldwell, More
, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Gil Rose, Sarah Caldwell, Christine Goerke, Pinchas Zukerman, opera boston, BSO, Discovery Ensemble, Courtney Lewis, Thaddeus Strassberger, Less
