Fidelio the scene in which the rescue finally takes place. The finale celebrates Leonore's bravery with alternating contributions of soloists and chorus. The work has a long and complicated history of composition: it went through three versions during Beethoven's career, and some of the music was first written as part of an earlier, never-completed opera. The distant origin of "Fidelio" dates from 1803, when the librettist and impresario Emanuel Schikaneder worked out a contract with Beethoven to write an opera. The contract included free housing for Beethoven in the apartment complex that was part of Schikaneder's large suburban theater, the Theater
Tarquin (opera) Tarquin (opera) Tarquin is a chamber opera by Ernst Krenek to an English libretto by Emmet Lavery. Written in 1940, it is Krenek's only unpublished opera (Op. 90), though a premiere in German translation (by M.-C. Schulte-Strathaus & P. Funk rather than the composer) took place in 1950 in Cologne. Krenek, who was in Switzerland at the time of the Anschluss, escaped to exile in the USA and a teaching position at Vassar College, where Lavery (1902–86) was a newspaper editor in neighboring Poughkeepsie (he would later run for Congress and write for Hollywood). The piece was designed for college