Haydn wrote 15 operas. Thanks to English Touring Opera, there’s a rare opportunity to see one of them this autumn. Haydn the opera composer. Really? The story of the symphony is unthinkable without ...

Most of Haydn's two dozen or so operas are deemed untheatrical and rarely performed, while about half of Puccini's dozen are among the greatest hits of all time. These composers would seem to make ...

Even before the first notes air, a reconstructed Haydn opera in its U.S. premiere carries at least as much curiosity as it does clout. Yet when Opera at Rutgers in collaboration with Musica Raritana — ...

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 ...

After a season of dark and tragic stories, the Sarasota Opera closes with much lighter fare that will be new to just about everyone. Joseph Haydn’s “Deceit Unwitted” (or “L’infedelta delusa”) had its ...

Much as I revere him as a composer of symphonies and string quartets, Haydn has always seemed to me a total non-starter as an opera composer. A great part of the problem is, of course, the more ...

Composer anniversaries are a good reason to explore less obvious repertoire, and here Haydn’s operas are in the spotlight. He didn’t have a Mozartian gift for tightly paced drama, but the individual ...

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 ...