Puppet theater was popular during the 18th century. Patrons espoused it, fine composers and writers created for it, the populace came to see it. Haydn's patron, Prince Esterhazy, was no exception, and ...
In 1958, rummaging through the Hungarian National Library in Budapest, a young U.S. musicologist named H. C. Robbins Landon unearthed a treasure-trove of eight operas by Franz Joseph Haydn. The scores ...
Each was neatly introduced through solo arias by Haydn’s Czech contemporary, Josef Mysliveček (b 1737). Prised from his opera Semiramide, with its bewilderingly convoluted backstory, they revealed a ...