Resurrecting Haydn's Operas

...and when at the close of the opera the characters join for a brisk rondo con variazioni in praise of mutual love, they prove as winning in concord as ever they did in strife...

...The lush voice of Jessye Norman sounds far too matronly for the gentle Ro-sina, and although she displays dexterity in florid passages, her flawed legato betrays faulty vocal support...

...Maurizio Mazzie-ri, who sounds the depths of Charon's cantabile lines with magisterial ease, is no less memorable...

...The opening is a storm at sea...

...When the spheres of action collide, as in the finales to the first two acts, mood chases mood in a dazzling musical panorama...

...God knows what can have inspired them...

...still, his stylistic sense sometimes fails him, and he lacks native vocal glamour...

...The one opera from Mozart's time that is still performed-albeit infrequently-is Domenico Cimarosa's // matrimonio segreto...

...and Alcina, the sorceress who protects the lovers and finally ends Orlando's frenzy by having Charon, ferryman of the dead, steep his mind in forgetfulness...

...Until then, fate conspires relentlessly against the poor fisher girl, Rosina...

...the lazy poltroon Pasquale, Orlando's squire, who wins the heart of Eurilla, a shepherd lass, by the virtuosity of his fiddling...

...Pasquale perks up long enough to execute a comic aria of amazing intricacy in the course of demonstrating his prowess with the violin...

...That Haydn did not intend to make light of Orlando's madness is clear from a striking musical fact...

...On the whole, that situation does not cry out for correction...

...Count Errico, her roving husband, has flown the coop without ever seeing their little boy...

...In cooperation with Radio Suisse Ro-mande and the European Broadcasting Union, Phonogram has launched a series that began last year with the scintillating La fedelta premiata, and now continues with La vera costanza (Phillips 6703 077) and Orlando Paladino (Phillips 6707 029), all featuring the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne under the direction of Antal Dorati...

...The serious attention that is currently being paid to his dramatic vocal music, therefore, is cause for curiosity at least, if not outright rejoicing...

...In the first, he raves at the insult of Angelica's rejection, striking an initial note of parody that the later action supersedes...

...While the springy verve of the music proclaims that no souls will be lost in this tempest, deft accents give the air a biting chill, and characters emerge sharply in the space of a few phrases...

...The opening duet introduces the secretly married couple, anticipates a fuss when their secret is made known, and assures a happy ending...

...In an otherwise serviceable supporting cast, Wladimiro Ganzarolli stands out for the unpardonable hideousness of his Villotto Villano, the role's buffo character notwithstanding...

...in the third, transported by the sorceress to the banks of the river Styx, he contemplates the instruments of war she has laid by his side, and finds a new serenity in the unearthly calm of the underworld...

...Strangely, La vera costanza ( "True Constancy"), the only opera in the Phillips series where no divinity or magic intervenes to disentangle the hopeless coils of the plot, is by far the most contrived...

...Orlando's three arias are all preceded by lengthy monologues set accompagnato...

...Irene even postpones her own wedding plans with Marquis Ernesto to first settle this more important business...

...Now it can be heard on record (Deutsche Grammo-phon 2709 069...

...Domenico Tri-marchi's infectious enjoyment of Pas-quale's outrageous embellishments and sallies into falsetto makes an indelible impression...

...And Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Die Zauberflote were yet to come...

...As for the performance, despite its sounding fresh and excellently prepared, Dorati's cast is not ideal...

...Evidence has until recently been hard to come by, yet one could suspect that among opera composers, Haydn was Mozart's single casualty worth regretting...

...Throughout this progression, Shirley deploys his manly, pliant tenor with an air of fine spontaneity, dramatic depth and beautiful stylistic assurance...

...But even after those masterworks appeared, few of the cognoscenti of the day would have concurred with the judgment Mozart's greatest contemporary made in foreswearing the genre...

...The rest of the enormous output of the 1780s and '90s has slipped into oblivion...

...Gwendolyn Killebrew hones her sound to a feline edge for a commanding Alcina...

...It is an unmerry comedy, much in the manner of All's Well that Ends Well: A lowly but virtuous heroine marries an ingrate from the nobility, endures his scorn and abandonment without complaint, and reaps the rewards of her cheerful patience when, instants before the final curtain, the husband undergoes a change of heart that makes him worthy and appreciative of his paragon of a wife...

...George Shirley, as Orlando, is wonderfully in accord with Dorati and the orchestra...

...As Rosina and her brother watch in terror, a courtly party abandons ship, hastening to pull the lifeboat ashore...

...But in their incredible predicaments, the players sing music that always makes them charming to listen to and, at best, lends them a touching authenticity of sentiment...

...The form also occurs in Charon's brief address before he restores Orlando to sanity, but elsewhere in the opera, Haydn grants it only to Angelica in her darkest despair...

...Succeeding generations saw the light, however, and today, when we think of opera in the time of Mozart, it is Mozart's operas we think of: For us, his works distill, exalt and perpetuate the essence of an age...

...In the arias, he is better yet, catching the distinct spirit of each crucial scene...

...Charon wards off the spirits of the uninterred with sublime and unadorned majesty...

...The greater expressiveness of recitativo accompagnato, where the full orchestra comes into play, is reserved for moments of heightened drama and pathos...

...Under Daniel Barenboim's accomplished direction, the English Chamber Orchestra, Arleen Auger, Julia Varady, Julia Hamari, Alberto Rinaldi, Ry-land Davies, and especially Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau perform with loving vivacity...

...Arleen Auger offers a sweet-voiced and poignant Angelica, Elly Ameling a deliciously playful Eurilla...

...Derived with much poetic license from Ariosto's great Renaissance epic, Orlando Paladino offered Haydn's playful imagination a richer, more fanciful field...

...Haydn's musical vocabulary ranges wide to suit the characters' assorted ranks and destinies...

...he passionately realizes that full potential of his recitativi as vivid dialogues between singer and instrumentalists...

...Listening to Cimarosa's effort, one cannot help thinking that the wrong man paid heed to Die Entfuhrung...

...The commonest form that operatic characters "speak" in between arias and other fully scored numbers is recitativo secco-pitched speech very close to regular talking, lightly accompanied by a continuo (harpsichord, cello and double bass...

...Frankly artificial premises twist and twine to frankly artificial conclusions of love and constancy conquering everything-unequal marriage, infidelity, scheming villains, lunacy, and (worst of all) the meddling of friends and relations...

...Angelica's gracious strains of lyric romance alternate with Orlando's raging discontent and Eurilla's simple folk-like melodies...

...Complications arise, but everything works out as foretold...

...Errico returns, possessive and suspicious, and in the hubbub that follows orders Rosina slain...

...The cast around him has no weaknesses...

...But Haydn's genius and sparkling invention served him faithfully in sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, and oratorios, and it seems impossible that they could have failed him anywhere...

...Claes H. Ahnsjo hits Errico's notes with accurate ease, and his breath control serves him well in long phrases...

...But after the stage is set so magnificently, the barbarities of the plot begin to intrude themselves on the pleasures of the score...

...The attempted murder fails, the lovers are reconciled, and the Baroness herself, after a last clumsy intrigue (forged letters), comes to bless the union...

...Certainly not the score's harmonic timidity and wan melodic charm...

...The neglect of most of the forgotten material spares us many evenings of formulaic tedium by secondary and tertiary composers...

...Meanwhile, his aunt, the arrogant Baroness Irene, has gotten wind of his romance (though not his marriage) with Rosina, and swoops down to marry her off to a rich booby, Villotto Villano...

...It concerns two lovers-angelica, Queen of Cathay, and the Saracen warrior Medoro— driven into hiding by the ferocity of Charlemagne's paladin Orlando, crazed with love for the queen...

...Only at the beginning, unfortunately, is it possible to relish the brilliant vocal and orchestral writing without divorcing it from its dramatic context...

...in the second, he learns with horror that he cannot defy the powers of Alcina...

...Assuming these three operas (out of Haydn's total of 20) constitute a fair sample, their chief dramatic interest rests in variety of character and incident rather than in coherence or plausibility...