This article investigates the role played by Beethoven's Fidelio in Machado de Assis' Memorial de Aires. In this extraordinary novel, Counselor Aires avoids condemning a woman who, nevertheless, is put under suspicion by his treacherous diary. In the opera, Leonora hides nothing, because behind her mask there is nothing but loyalty to her imprisoned husband. Machado de Assis, however, begins his novel in a cemetery, where the beloved husband is buried. The main question that is left is: What to do if fidelity refers to an object, be it the beloved or a literary referent, that does not exist any longer?
Machado de Assis; Beethoven; Suspicion; Opera; Literature and morality; Referentiality
