Music: Are Haydn Operas Coming Back?

Neglected for two centuries, they abound with sparkling scores

If I want to hear good opera,” the Empress Maria Theresa-once remarked, “I must go to Eszterháza.” Such was the fame of Joseph Haydn’s musical establishment at the country palace of his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, that even crowned heads journeyed from Vienna to rural Hungary to hear his operas. Yet today the two dozen or so operas by one of music’s most important, beloved figures are the least known of his major works. It is an undeserved obscurity.

As Haydn’s 250th birthday is celebrated this week, there are signs that his operas’ long spell on the shelf is nearing an end. Through the dedicated efforts of scholars like the indefatigable H.C. Robbins Landon and institutions like the Joseph Haydn Institute in Cologne, many previously unpublished operas have been carefully edited and issued in critical editions. Eight have been recorded by Conductor Antal Dorati for Philips records.

Long considered unstageworthy, they are now turning up in the theater as well. La Vera Costanza (True Constancy) was given its American premiere in 1967 in Cleveland; L’incontro Improvviso (The Unforeseen Encounter), an “abduction” opera set in Cairo, was performed in concert version by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic in 1973. Armida, an opera seria set during the Crusades, was produced in New Hampshire last summer with the action updated to the Viet Nam War. Just a fortnight ago another major work, Orlando Paladino, was staged in Philadelphia.

It was Haydn’s younger contemporary Mozart who determined the character of modern opera, and in so doing rendered the works of Haydn and most other 18th century composers out of date. Mozart’s ability to portray real emotions on the stage instead of stylized attitudes, and his inventive use of the orchestra as an active participant instead of merely an accompanist, powerfully influenced later generations of composers. In the works he created with Librettist Lorenzo da Ponte—The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Così Fan Tutte—Mozart’s genius transcended the conventional boundaries of master-servant comedies and lovers’ farces to create a new kind of psychological music drama.

Haydn himself acknowledged that “scarcely any man can brook comparison with the great Mozart.” And although he esteemed his own operas highly, he feared they might not travel well. Asked in 1787 for permission to produce one of them in Prague, Haydn replied: “I cannot comply with your wish, because all my operas are far too closely connected with our personal circle, and moreover they would not produce the proper effect, which I calculated in accordance with the locality.”

During the nearly 30 years that he spent in the service of the Esterházys, Haydn gained vast experience in conducting and producing operas—his own and those of other composers. In the single year of 1786, he led a total of 125 performances. But he was never a man of the commercial theater as Mozart was. His operas, mostly light in character, did not have to please any taste but the Esterházys’. And rather than working closely with a librettist to create something new—as Mozart did with Da Ponte—Haydn was largely content to accept preexisting librettos.

Still, as Musicologist Barry Brook of the City University of New York points out, “No one has to compare Haydn with Mozart. He is not Mozart. But compared with those of the other composers of the 18th century, his operas are superb musically and deserve a far better fate than they’ve received.”

The recent Pennsylvania Opera Theater production of Orlando Paladino, a work that alternates buffa elements with more serious moments, showed the best reason for giving Haydn’s operas a hearing: their scores. To the lovesick knight Orlando (Tenor John Gilmore), crazed by a passion for Angelica, the Queen of Cathay, Haydn gave a stirring entrance that suggests the depths of the mad paladin’s emotion. On Angelica (Soprano Randi Marrazzo), he lavished arias in each act that shimmer with dazzling coloratura and touching pathos. And for the finale, he composed a high-spirited, catchy septet that reconciles the conflicting emotions with warmth and wit.

In Philadelphia, the opera’s plot was abridged, two minor characters eliminated and the music somewhat reordered, so the production was not a fair test of the opera’s stage worthiness. At Eszterháza, Haydn could call on a large cast of silent extras to provide plenty of spectacle, and the theater’s sophisticated stage machinery—which could transform settings from a pleasant garden to an enchanted wood or a glorious hall—was expected to carry a good deal of the dramatic load.

Such works are most effective when staged by what Brook calls “the full forces of a large company in a small hall.” Consequently, they are unlikely to find their way into the repertory of the change-resistant and cost-conscious international houses. More likely, they will be performed by smaller companies and at festivals, brought out on special occasions to instruct and delight. “They are never going to run Mozart’s Figaro out of existence,” says Landon. “They are not the meal, but the sugarplums after the meal.” But as such, he believes, “they are going to have a life of their own. As long as there are opera houses, one or another will always be doing a Haydn opera.”

—By Michael Walsh