About the work
Orlando paladino is a dramma eroicomico in three acts, its libretto adapted by Nunziato Porta from Ariosto's epic poem Orlando furioso. It premiered on 6 December 1782 at the opera house of Eszterháza to mark Prince Nikolaus Esterházy's name day.
Plot
Driven mad by grief over the unfaithful Angelica, the knight Orlando rampages through the countryside until the sorceress Alcina and the magician Zoroastro restore his senses. Comic supporting characters such as the timid shepherd Pasquale mix chivalric pathos with buffo scenes.
Cultural significance
With more than twenty further performances at Eszterháza alone and stagings in over twenty European cities, Orlando paladino was the most successful of Haydn's operas in his lifetime; the score mixes heroic pathos with proto-Rossinian buffo passages.