EL PAÍS: With a deaf choir, Gustavo Dudamel’s ‘Fidelio’ brings the audience closer to Beethoven

Excerpt by Luis Pablo Beauregard for El País, published April 13, 2022

Gustavo Dudamel and Maria Valverde, at a break in Fidelio on April 12, 2022 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, CA. APU GOMES

“Umba, umba, umba, umba...,” “a little more yammmmajajaja” - Gustavo Dudamel is all onomatopoeia.

“Standing before the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the 41 year-old Venezuelan orchestra conductor is pushing through the final details of the rehearsals of Fidelio, the only opera Beethoven composed. It premiered on Thursday at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with actors and a choir of deaf people.

“The idea of staging Fidelio with deaf actors who could reflect Beethoven’s inner torment at losing his hearing was first developed by the Venezuelan conductor in 2018 together with his wife, Spanish actress María Valverde.

“That silence in which he was immersed gave him the ability to write music that is still avant-garde today,” says Dudamel.

The Coro de Manos Blancas, during their rehearsal of Fidelio. APU GOMES

“Soon the project involved Los Angeles’ Deaf West Theatre company, renowned for its role in musicals, films and series since 1991. The Manos Blancas Choir, made up of 12 deaf artists from the city of Barquisimeto (Venezuela, also the city where Dudamel was born), also joined the production. On stage, the audience witnesses a world with a mix of hearing and deaf people.”

“‘It’s a way of educating us to in being open to worlds we’re not used to. The collaboration of everyone leads to understanding the language of the soul in an opera,’ says Maria Valverde, co-chair of the Dudamel Foundation who is directing a documentary about the Manos Blancas Choir.”