Even listeners who know Haydn well are often surprised to find out that the famous composer who wrote scores of symphonies, string quartets, piano trios, barytone trios, and piano sonata among dozens of other instrumental works also wrote operas. But when his employer Prince Nikolaus Esterházy became passionately devoted to opera and built a 400-seat theater on his estate in Hungary, Haydn perforce became an opera composer. Eventually, however, he turned away from the stage and back to the instrumental works that would win him a European reputation, and unfortunately his operas were rarely revived after his death. In the '70s, Philips engaged
Antal Dorati to a record eight of Haydn's best operas with the
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and Les Choeurs de la Radio Suisse Ramande and an impressive cast of soloists, including
Arleen Augér,
Edith Mathis,
Frederica von Stade,
Benjamin Luxon, and
Anthony Rolfe Johnson.
Dorati was already renowned for his series of recordings of Haydn's complete symphonies and he seems just as comfortable directing the composer's operas from the harpsichord. Although the four works recorded here -- L'incontro improvviso, L'infedelita Delusa, L'sola disabitata, and Il mondo della luna -- are among Haydn's least-known operas,
Dorati and his forces' attention never flags and they are as successful in the comic works as they are in the serious works. Anyone who reveres Haydn will surely enjoy these works and these performances. Philips' stereo sound is open, airy, and deep.