My first Haydn opera

Don’t ask me how it happened but until very few months ago Haydn was a composer I associated to my violin playing days. Of course I knew a few art songs (some scary memories from my pre-university years) and that he had written a few operas, but I had never had the opportunity to actually look into one of these operas.
So when the chance arose, of course I took it. Here in Germany the universities are good at performing (Haydn and Schubert) operas and operettas no one outside the German borders has ever heard of.
I got offered a part in the University production of La fedeltà premiata. It’s an opera that reminds me partly of La finta giardiniera (written about 6 years earlier) as far as roles and structure are concerned. It’s written 1781, about the same time as Mozart’s Idomeneo but different from the Mozart’s operas it actually presents a female part for a mezzo/alto – not a second soprano in a trouser part.

I don’t have much preparation time, my loved ones will have to stand me working over the christmas holidays, but I’m very much looking forward to discover this music together with conductor Guido Johannes Rumstadt and the director Joachim Rathke