Haydn: Le Pescatrici (The Fisher Girls)

New Chamber Opera
New College Oxford

Musical Director: Steven Devine
Producer: Michael Burden

The Evening’s Events
6.00pm Drinks in the Cloisters
6.30pm Opera Act I
7.45pm Picnic Interval in the Cloisters (Bring your own picnic)
9.00pm Opera Act II
10.30pm Curtain down

Synopsis
Haydn’s Le Pescatrici (The Fisher Girls) was the composer’s first full-length opera. The libretto was by Carlo Goldoni, who, with a mixture of comic and serious characters, provided witty social commentary. The story tells the tale of Lindoro, Prince of Sorrento, who is in search of the lost Princess of Benevento; he wishes to marry her and retore her to her rightful throne. She was last seen at the fishing village of Taranto, where two fisher girls – Nerina and Lesbina – live. When the Prince arrives, they both pretend that they are the Princess, in order to catch the his eye. To do so, they ditch their current lovers, the fishermen Fresollino and Burlotto; the men in turn seek revenge by trying to pass off each other’s girlfriends as the Princess. However, by means of a dramatic identification of a jeweled dagger, it emerges that Eurilda is the Princess; she has been in Mastricco’s care all the time.

Le Pescatrici was, like Haydn’s other operas, premiered in the theatre at Eszterháza, the residence of the composer patron; the first performance was on 16 September 1770 to mark the wedding celebrations of Countess Lamberg, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy’s niece, and Count Poggi. The staging was extravagant and a huge success, but the destruction of the vocal and orchestral parts in the opera house fire of 1779 has meant that the surviving work is a reconstruction of Haydn’s original and receives few modern stagings because of it.