Orfeo Ed Euridice

Prof. Robbins Landon writes: L'anima del filosofo is one of Haydn's most impressive works and likewise one of the great monuments to opera seris; if it fails as opera, it fails magnificently, as did Mozart's Idomeneo. Yet despite it's disability to succeed as a stage piece it rounds out, in a curious way, Haydn's activities as an operatic composer. It will no longer be possible to consider Haydn in London without L'anima del filosofo; and I think Haydn, who was the most modest and self-critical of all composers, would be satisfied with that.