An Outsider Among The Thespians

An Outsider Among the Thespians is a novel about La Florentina, Haydnas alosta comic opera. The story is told in three parts, as it moves from the Drottningholm Court Theater in Stockholm to Eszterhaza in Hungary, and, finally, to London. Haydn was asked to compose an opera on the libretto of a young Italian poet, Bruno Tagliatelli. Bruno is a protege of the ChA(c)valier A.J. Lundquist, the powerful and crafty superintendent of the Royal Court Theater. Haydn is intrigued and begins to work on the score. Unfortunately, bad luck dogs the project. Prince Esterhazy dies suddenly, leaving Haydnas company in disarray. Then Bruno disappears in Venice. The libretto proves to be the fruit of frank plagiarism and, at the last moment, staging of the opera is stopped by royal command. What is the composer to do? Haydn returns to Vienna, taking the opera along, where further bad news is waiting. La Florentina is ultimately put aside, mislaid, then disappears. The last great opera buffa of the eighteenth century is lost, probably forever. Haydn refuses to write more operas. One by one, the novelas characters move off the scene as their lives and adventures fade away at the end of the century. But Haydn survives, and so does his music, even if not through La Florentina. An Outsider Among the Thespians is a story of the theater, set on the eve of the French Revolution. In a sense, it is a fond farewell to the 1700s, the great-grandfather of the current century.