HAYDN'S OPERAS

Orlando Paladino and Armida were Joseph Haydn’s two most successful operas, at least for the Eszterhazy Prince and family, having many performances in the grand palace at Fertod, Hungary, and others directed by Mozart at concerts in Vienna.

If you can forget the allegorical plots, a feature of eighteenth century opera, with the forlorn loves of heroines and madness of heroes, and just listen to the way Haydn portrays his characters with his music, using the voice as another orchestral instrument, you begin to appreciate his musical genius.

Haydn composed the music for twenty operas, including those for the Marionette Theatre at Eszterhaza, compared with Mozart’s twenty four and just one for Beethoven.
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With the move towards “personalised” opera plots, like Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and the late 19th century operas of Verdi and early 20th century ones of Puccini, where the plots relate to “real” individuals, you can understand how Haydn’s operas, and others of the same period, with their mystical theology, were shunned by the public up to the present day.

Surely we can make the observation that Haydn’s compositions for choral works, as in his brilliant “Creation” composed in 1797, where he combined the music for the religious text with those same “operatic” elements of the stories personalities, for example the Adam and Eve duet, could have influenced those great opera composers’ music making later operas so appealing. Haydn’s music for the arias in Orlando and Armida have been acknowledged to be as good as those of Mozart’s in his “Magic Flute” or “Marriage of Figaro”!
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The English Haydn Festival is privileged to have the arias performed by Ana Beard Fernandez, soprano, who has sung at international opera engagements, and Miranda Westcott, mezzo, Timothy Langston, tenor, and bass, Eugene Dillon Hooper, three members of The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. They combine with the English Haydn Orchestra, conducted by Steven Devine, for an evening’s performance of musical magic.     ​