Love & Justice: In The Footsteps of Beethoven's Rebel Opera

Beethoven composed only one opera in his lifetime, the grand and profoundly moving Fidelio. The 1805 opera tells the story of Leonore, the wife of the unjustly imprisoned Florestan, who has been slowly dying, spiritually and physically, in a dungeon run by the tyrant Pizzaro. Desperate to save Florestan, Leonore disguises herself as a young man named Fidelio and takes a job in the prison where Florestan is held. Fidelio is an opera about courage, heroism, love, and the struggle for justice in the face of despotism.

Beethoven’s operatic masterpiece is at the heart of Kerry Candaele's new documentary, Love and Justice: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Rebel Opera. Candaele tracks the themes and influence of Beethoven’s work across time and space to tell a deeply contemporary story.

Along with the tale of Leonore and Florestan, Love & Justice tells a parallel story of a man imprisoned during the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile—and the wife and children who worked to free him.