Fidelio by Ferdinando Paer (a score of which was owned by Beethoven). Beethoven published the 1806 libretto and, in 1810, a vocal score under the title "Leonore", and the current convention is to use the name "Leonore" for both the 1805 (three-act) and 1806 (two-act) versions and "Fidelio" only for the final 1814 revision. The first version with a three-act German libretto adapted by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly premiered at the Theater an der Wien on 20 November 1805, with additional performances the following two nights. The success of these performances was hindered by the fact that
The Royal Opera but none would take the permanent post. It was not until 1954 that Webster found a replacement for Rankl in Rafael Kubelík. Kubelík announced immediately that he was in favour of continuing the policy of singing in the vernacular: "Everything that the composer has written should be understood by the audience; and that is not possible if the opera is sung in a language with which they are not familiar". This provoked a public onslaught by Beecham, who continued to maintain that it was impossible to produce more than a handful of English-speaking opera stars, and that importing singers from