Space Oddities
How Joseph Haydn beat Katy Perry into space
Ground control
Joseph Haydn’s Il mondo della Luna premiered in August, 1777, written for the wedding celebration of Count Nikolaus Esterházy (the son of Haydn’s patron). Being that it was written for a wedding, the plot carries all of the nutritional value of cotton candy: Two sisters are dying to get away from under their fathers’ thumb and marry the men they love, rather than make the dynastic marriages he’s banking on.
One of their boyfriends, a fake astronomer whose name is etymologically linked to the word “eclipse,” concocts a plan: He will, with the aid of a sedative, convince the girls’ father that he has traveled to the world of the moon. While there, a stranger in a strange land, he can easily be manipulated into consenting to his daughters marrying the men of their choice (as well as a third marriage between their maid and manservant).
The plan, though implausible, works. “Buonafede, looking through a phony …
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