Mondo della luna
(The World of the Moon)

by Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809).
Dramma giocoso in three acts. 1777.
Libretto by Carlo Goldoni.
First performance at Esterháza perhaps on 3rd August 1777.

The false astrologer Ecclitico seeks to fool the protective Buonafede into allowing his daughters Clarice and Flaminia, and their maid Lisetta, to marry the husbands they choose, Ecclitico, the cavalier Ernesto and his servant Cecco respectively. Drugged, Buonafede is taken into Ecclitico's garden, which he thinks is the moon. There he sees Cecco as Emperor and Ernesto as Hesperus. They are joined by the girls, who are duly betrothed to the appropriate partners, before Buonafede realises he has been duped. In the third act he assents to the marriages.

Haydn re-used material from the first of his operas for the new seasons established at the theatre of the palace of Esterháza. The overture is occasionally heard in the concert-hall, but, as with other operas by Haydn, Il mondo della luna (The World of the Moon) has never found an established place in continuing operatic repertoire.