Fidelio the opera which, thanks to the music of Beethoven, gives us comfort and courage... Certainly, "Fidelio" is not an opera in the sense we are used to, nor is Beethoven a musician for the theater, or a dramaturgist. He is quite a bit more, a whole musician, and beyond that, a saint and a visionary. That which disturbs us is not a material effect, nor the fact of the 'imprisonment'; any film could create the same effect. No, it is the music, it is Beethoven himself. It is this 'nostalgia of liberty' he feels, or better, makes us feel; this
What Men Live By (opera) What Men Live By (opera) What Men Live By ("Čím člověk žije" in Czech) is an opera in one act by Bohuslav Martinů to an English libretto by the composer, based on "Where Love Is, There God Is Also" (1885) by Leo Tolstoy, though he chose to use the more universal title of a different Tolstoy story "What Men Live By" (1886). It was composed in 1951-1952 when the composer was living in the U.S.A, and described by him as a 'pastoral-opera'. The opera was premiered as a television broadcast in New York in May 1953. The first staged performance