- Il mondo della luna is an operatic work (“dramma giocoso”) which was performed on August 3, 17771 for the marriage of Prince Nicolaus [Miklós]2 Esterházy’s younger son,3 Count Nicolaus.4
- The opera is based on Carlo Goldoni’s Il mondo della luna, which had previously been set as an opera by Baldassare Galuppi.5
- Story: Ecclitico, identified in the score as a “bogus astronomer,” wants to marry Clarice, but her miserly father Bonafede won’t allow it. Using a telescope, carefully staged pantomimes, and a hallucinatory potion, Ecclitico tricks Bonfede into believing that there is a utopian world on the moon, where the social order is upended and people can marry outside their class. Bonfede is so impressed by the moon world that he eventually agrees to the marriage.6
- Haydn reused this overture as the opening of his Symphony No. 63 in C Major.7
Sources
- J. Haydn, Il mondo della luna: dramma giocoso in tre atti (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2009), vi.
- Karl Geiringer et al, “Joseph Haydn,” Encyclopædia Brittanica (May 27, 2019), accessed October 22, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Haydn.
- Georg Feder and James Webster, “Haydn, (Franz) Joseph,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed October 22, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000044593.
- Richard Wigmore, The Faber Pocket Guide to Haydn (London: Faber, 2009), 318.
- Haydn, Il mondo della luna: dramma giocoso in tre atti, vi.
- Caryl Clark, “Mondo della luna, Il (ii),” Grove Music Online (2002), accessed October 22, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000009280.
- Feder and Webster, “Haydn, (Franz) Joseph,” Grove Music Online.
Cut IDs
13127