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Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Schöpfungsmesse – L’isola disabitata

Joseph Haydn has always been credited by music lovers with the development of the symphony and the string quartet but, until recently, his operas have been completely unknown. Biographers mentioned his many stage works and his musical life at the palace of Esterhazy. [?]

In 1766 Paul Anton, Count Esterhazy, appointed the 34-year-old composer as court musician for the magnificent rococo theatre at his luxurious palace on the southern shore of Lake Neusidl. ‘I was completely cut off from civilisation’, wrote Haydn about this period, ‘there was no one to come up with a tune or show me anything. I had to create it all myself.’ After his first opera Lo Speziale, he composed eleven more for the court theatre, almost all of which were written for special occasions. They were light and charming, in the style of Italian opera, and ideally suited to the talented music ensemble Haydn had at his disposal. The young Italian singer Luigia Polzelli is often mentioned in descriptions of Haydn’s operas. Despite her lack of talent, she knew how to wind the 48-year-old unhappily-married maestro round her little finger. They worked together in the court ensemble for over ten years and Haydn wrote two roles specially for her, one in La vera costanza and the other – the young Silvia – in L’isola disabitata, 1779.

‘When I want to hear good opera, I go to Esterháza’, remarked the Empress Maria Theresia on a visit in the summer of 1773. This was perhaps no more than courtesy to her host, but it has the ring of truth about it. It helped Haydn’s fame as a theatre composer to reach Vienna, at that time one of the most important opera centres in Europe. But after his death, his fame evaporated as quickly as it had come. It was not until the 1930s that interest in Haydn’s operas revived.

The short opera L’isola disabitata (‘The Uninhabited Island’) is based on a text by Metastasio. It tells the tragic story of Costanza, who has been parted from her husband and abandoned by pirates on an uninhabited island with her young sister Silvia. Thirteen years later, the lovers are reunited and, after doubts about each other’s faithfulness have been dispelled, they are reconciled. The simplicity and sincerity of the music make this work a little jewel. The beautiful arias and - even more - the lovely, often through-composed, ensemble scenes demonstrate Haydn’s unique talent as a composer.

The Nationale Reisopera presents an adventurous Haydn evening by combining the known and unknown in the same programme. The so-called Schöpfungs Messe (‘Creation Mass’), by the Salzburg court composer and Kapelmeister Luigi Gatti on the theme of Haydn’s best-known oratorio (1809), will be also performed.