Haydn the opera composer. Really? The story of the symphony is unthinkable without him, but despite writing 15 full-scale operas, we just don’t think of Haydn as a genius of music theatre. This autumn, thanks to the efforts of English Touring Opera, who are putting on a new production of his Life on the Moon, audiences will have that rarest of things, a chance to see if posterity got it right in its assessment of Haydn’s music-theatre. Given how little any of his operas are performed at all (ETO is the only British opera company to have real Haydn-esque form, having also produced L’infedelta delusa in 2007), you would have thought they can’t have anything much going for them: like Schubert’s operatic career, Haydn’s is thought to be not worth the entry fee.

But that’s nonsense, of course. The bulk of Haydn’s operas, including Life on the Moon, were written for private performance to the artistos of Esterhazy between 1762 and 1784, where Haydn spent most of his life in music. But the same is true of his symphonies, and they have fared much better in the annals of his posthumous history compared to the operas. Perhaps their neglect is partly thanks to the astonishing brilliance of Mozart’s operas, whose success has kept other late-18th century operas away from the operatic canon, but it’s also something much more prosaic - the laziness of programmers, producers, and opera houses in not exploring one of the richest music-theatrical seams of the late 18th century. There have been exceptions: conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt and mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli, to name but two modern-day Haydn pioneers; but more broadly, Haydn’s operas have never gained more than a fingerhold on the cliff face of the operatic canon (despite the conductor Antal Dorati’s best efforts: as well as his recordings of the complete symphonies, he also taped eight of Haydn’s operas for Decca in the 1970s and early 1980s).

But consider this: were it not for a spat in the upper echelons of the British royal family, we could be talking as much about Haydn’s “London” opera as his “London” symphonies. L’anima del filosofo, or Orfeo ed Euridice, composed in 1791 for his first visit to London and commissioned by John Gallini, was planned for performances at the King’s Theatre, but permission wasn’t granted thanks to a disagreement between George III and the Prince of Wales. This, Haydn’s last opera, was never performed in his lifetime, and in fact had to wait until 1951 for its first performance, when Erich Kleiber conducted a cast that included Maria Callas in Florence.

So as English Touring Opera prepare for their exotic lunar excursion (the tour starts at the Hackney Empire on Friday 17 October), I think we all need to give Haydn a proper operatic chance. Here are some complete-opera performances to start your exploration the world of Haydn’s music-theatre and make up your own minds. I think this is potential music-dramatic goldmine for audiences and opera houses to discover, and there’s a lot of it out there on YouTube: my favourites so far are L’anima del filofoso and Armida, but see what you reckon!

L’anima filosofo: yes, it’s a slightly shonky transfer from VHS, but there’s a fantastic and committed performance here from Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Cecilia Bartoli, Wolfgang Holzmair, and others. Haydn’s final opera, it was composed in 1791: there should have been more.

Armida (audio only): Bartoli in the title role with Harnoncourt and his Concentus Musicus Wien again, in the opera that Haydn considered his finest, the last one he wrote for Esterhazy in 1784 - enjoy!

Il mondo della luna (Life on the Moon) (audio only) from Antal Dorati’s landmark series of Haydn opera recordings; this one is from 1978, and despite the comedy-killing staidness of the recitatives, this is another winner in the rest of the performance. There’s also this terrific staging from Vienna in 2009 conducted by Harnoncourt.

L’infedelta delusa (audio only): another comic opera for Esterhazy, and another starry line up of soloists - including Edith Mathis and Barbara Hendricks - led by Dorati and the Lusanne Chamber Orchestra.

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