ESZTERHÁZA OPERA CYCLE HAYDN
"L'INFELEDTÀ DELUSA"
"L'INFELEDTÀ DELUSA"
Hob: XXVIII no.5
Barbara Hendricks / Edith Mathis
Claes H. Ahnsjö / Aldo Baldin / Michael Devlin
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne
ANTAL DORATI
L'infedelta delusa occasioned Maria Theresa's famous tribute, "If I want to hear good opera I go to Esterhazy."
| Notes & Reviews | ||
This reissue of the splendid late-1970s initiative by Dorati, the European Broadcasting Union and Philips—a pioneering achievement of magnitude—is most welcome. All these eight operas [available at ArkivMusic as two 10-CD box sets: Volume 1 and Volume 2] were written in a single decade from 1773 (when Haydn was also busy revising, preparing and directing for Esterhaza a mass of operas by other composers): they range from farce to opera seria. If the just criticism is made that, for the most part (though not entirely) characterization is superficial and dramatic structure slack, blame should fall on the conventional (when not downright silly) plots: Haydn did not have Mozart's huge advantage of a da Ponte as librettist, and comparison between the two composers fails to take into account that most of Haydn's operas were written before Mozart's first masterpiece, Idomeneo. On the other hand, what Haydn did provide, in plenty, were superb opportunities for first-class singers; and a great strength of this batch is the very high standard of performance of music that is not only immensely demanding of the artists but extremely attractive to the listener. Another strength is the alert orchestral playing; and a special word is due to the presentation, which is exemplary.
L'infedelta delusa, the earliest of these eight operas...[is], by tradition, the one which occasioned Maria Theresa's famous tribute, ''If I want to hear good opera I go to Esterhazy''. The Overture begins brightly and breezily, but a slower section leads directly into a fine vocal quartet, which in turn is interrupted by a scene for the four characters—an anything but conventional opening to an opera. Highlights of the work are the finales to the acts (this is the only two-act opera apart from L'isola disabitata) and a vengeance duet in Act 1. Vocal honours are taken by Mathis, who as the vivacious Vespina (a forerunner by 17 years of Mozart's Despina) does not overdo caricature when adopting various disguises (including that of a notary) to further her intrigues to capture the man she wants.
L'infedelta delusa, the earliest of these eight operas...[is], by tradition, the one which occasioned Maria Theresa's famous tribute, ''If I want to hear good opera I go to Esterhazy''. The Overture begins brightly and breezily, but a slower section leads directly into a fine vocal quartet, which in turn is interrupted by a scene for the four characters—an anything but conventional opening to an opera. Highlights of the work are the finales to the acts (this is the only two-act opera apart from L'isola disabitata) and a vengeance duet in Act 1. Vocal honours are taken by Mathis, who as the vivacious Vespina (a forerunner by 17 years of Mozart's Despina) does not overdo caricature when adopting various disguises (including that of a notary) to further her intrigues to capture the man she wants.
-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [6/1993]
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