Freedom, courage, and human rights: Vitali Alekseenok conducts Beethoven’s liberation opera Fidelio

Conducting Beethoven’s liberation opera Fidelio is a matter close to Vitali Alekseenok’s heart. Chief Conductor at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein for the past two years, he conducted a concert performance of Beethoven’s only opera. Our cameras accompanied the Belarusian conductor during rehearsals and at the premiere in Duisburg. In this interview, he speaks about Beethoven’s ambitious work, his own life story and his political convictions. His colleagues also describe what it is like to work with this deeply committed conductor.

Vitali Alekseenok sees music as a social responsibility. He is politically active, particularly regarding Ukraine and his home country of Belarus. In 2020, he traveled to Belarus for six weeks, taking part in protests and strikes in Minsk opposing President Alexander Lukashenko. In his 2021 book, The White Days of Minsk, he reflects on the political situation and the struggle for freedom in his homeland. Immediately after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he traveled to the Polish-Ukrainian border with humanitarian aid, assisting as an interpreter and mediator.

At a glance:
00:00 Introduction to Belarusian conductor Vitali Alekseenok
00:36 Alekseenok on Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio
01:29 On the way to the dress rehearsal
01:48 Alekseenok on his role as a conductor
02:43 Dress rehearsal at the Mercatorhalle Duisburg
03:04 Overview of Alekseenok’s opera productions at Deutsche Oper am Rhein
03:29 Birte Hopstein, choir member, on Alekseenok’s conducting style
03:56 Alekseenok’s beginnings in Belarus
04:43 Move to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory
05:16 Move to Germany and performances across Europe
05:38 Alekseenok on performing in Belarus
06:14 Alekseenok and the peaceful protests in Minsk in 2020
07:09 The idea behind the opera Fidelio
07:20 Excerpts from Fidelio
08:23 Alekseenok on the potential of opera
09:22 Expansion of the performance with new texts on Ukraine by writer Katja Petrowskaja
10:11 Excerpts from Beethoven’s opera Fidelio
10:54 Lavinia Dames, soprano at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, on the struggle for freedom and human rights
11:24 Standing ovation and closing remarks by Alekseenok

Freedom, courage, and human rights are the central themes that form the foundation of Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio. It tells the story of Florestan, who has been unjustly imprisoned, and his devoted wife Leonore, who — defying all danger — disguises herself as a man under the name “Fidelio” to rescue him. On the journey from captivity to a seemingly utopian freedom, the music’s dramatic force breaks through conventional boundaries.

Vitali Alekseenok was born in 1991 in Vileyka, Belarus. As a teenager, he learned to play the trombone and performed jazz and popular music in a wind orchestra. He later trained as a trombonist at the State College of Music in Minsk, with conducting as a secondary focus. At age 20, he began studying conducting at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. In 2016, he moved to Germany to pursue his master’s degree at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar. In 2021, he won first prize and several special awards at the prestigious Arturo Toscanini Conducting Competition in Parma.

From 2018 to 2022, Alekseenok served as Conductor and Artistic Director of the Abaco Orchestra at the University of Munich. As an opera conductor, he led the first Ukrainian production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at the National Opera of Ukraine in 2021. In June of the same year, he became Artistic Director of the Kharkiv Music Festival in Ukraine. In 2022, he was appointed Kapellmeister at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, and since the 2024/25 season, he has served as its Chief Conductor. In addition, Alekseenok has launched numerous educational projects across Western and Eastern Europe and has conducted youth orchestras in Germany, Italy, Poland, and Ukraine.

By the way: Vitali Alekseenok performed at the campus concert as part of the 2022 Beethovenfest, where he conducted, among other works, Olga Podgaiskaya’s “The Sky of Mary”. Here is the link to the video on YouTube DW Classical Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_oQTuuihqc.

Report: Olga Kapustina

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