Original Booklet with Synopsis and liner notes is included, although there is no libretto.

R E V I E W S

Haydn's last opera, written to inaugurate the reopening of the King's Theatre in the Haymarket in 1791 after a disastrous fire, took as its subject the Orpheus legend, not as it had been adopted by Gluck 30 years earlier, but based on Ovid: Eurydice receives her fatal snakebite while fleeing from Prince Arideo, to whom her father, King Creonte, had affianced her against her will; and there is no happy ending—Orpheus, after his journey to the underworld, loses her for ever, and he is then killed by the Maenads. At least, that is what Haydn would have set had he finished the work; but owing to the crazy rival patronage of George III and the Prince of Wales, the King refused a licence to the theatre manager and went so far as to ban even extracts from the new opera—this from so famous and popular a composer as Haydn! So Haydn stopped work on it, and as no complete libretto exists it is impossible to tell what is actually missing. Large gaps there conspicuously are: principal characters lack arias which would certainly have been their due; there are loose ends in the story, such as what happens after Creonte's call to arms (in a stirring aria) to avenge Arideo's attempted abduction of his daughter; and there is the briefest and most perfunctory treatment of such essential dramatic moments as Orpheus's confrontation with Pluto and of his desperate attempts not to look at Eurydice as he brings her back to earth. Even the main title of the opera remains mystifying, as the only reference to it in the text is when Amor (here called Genio) urges Orpheus to be philosophical about his great loss.

Nevertheless, what remains includes some fine music, as can be heard here. From the outset of the overture Haydn makes much use of broken phrases to express pathos; there is a long love duet at the end of Act 1, a charming folky chorus of little Cupids to begin Act 2; particularly rich are the accompanied recitatives throughout, that by Eurydice as she is bitten by the snake being most moving; the chorus of Furies in Hades is extremely striking, with powerful orchestration; and there is a spectacular bravura aria for Genio, seemingly intended for some leading soprano castrato. On the other hand, it is difficult to understand why Haydn wrote such cheery music for Creonte's aria about life not being worth living without love, and for Orpheus's ''Mi sento languire, morire mi sento''. This live Frankfurt performance is in general very acceptable, though had it been transferred to the studio some details could have been improved: for example, ensemble of the (period) woodwind might have been much better, and there might have been fewer mistakes in the singers' Italian. Marilyn Schmiege makes an appealing Eurydice and copes fairly well, flexibly if not absolutely cleanly, with her first florid aria, in which she likens her laments to those of the nightingale; Christoph Pregardien produces a nice messa di voce at the start of Orpheus's first solo (with harp obbligato) in which he tames the forest's wild beasts threatening his beloved's safety, but the part frequently descends too low for his pleasant light tenor, into a register where he is weak; and Claron McFadden adds to her reputation with some brilliant coloratura, though she is fractionally sharp in places: the chorus, which plays a large part in the action, is excellent.

-- Lionel Salter, Gramophone [4/1992]