Joseph Haydn: Philemon and Baucis

For Haydn’s bicentenary, Profil are delighted to release the world première recording of the puppet opera Philemon and Baucis. The opera was supposedly composed and performed to mark a visit the Empress Maria Theresia paid to Prince Miklós Eszterházy, Haydn’s once employers. It is also said to have marked the opening of the puppet theatre. The music of Joseph Haydn's three-section German puppet opera Philemon and Baucis is fragmentary. The middle part however, in which the true action takes place, has survived in almost complete form.