There were fragmentary autographs in collections in Berlin, Budapest, Cracow and Paris, and scholars had also found three contemporary copies – one, lacking Act 3, in Brussels, and two, complete, in Brno and Vienna.

Il mondo della luna and the other works in Doráti's Haydn cycle were only taped after Philips's producer, Erik Smith, had secured support from the European Broadcasting Union.

[2] The opera was recorded using analogue technology in September 1977 in the Grande Salle of the community theatre in Épalinges, a village high in the hills above Lausanne, Switzerland.

Domenico Trimarchi, "particularly alert to textual nuances", painted a persuasive portrait of Buonafede, the wealthy old innocent being duped by his daughters' and maidservant's lovers.

Luigi Alva was equally enjoyable as Ecclitico, the bogus astronomer – styled an astrologer by a librettist too ignorant to know the difference – who tricked his future father-in-law into believing that he had been miraculously transported to the moon.

The opera's other male role, Ernesto, originally an alto part sung by a castrato, was undertaken by Lucia Valentini Terrani in the album's least successful performance.

As Clarice's sister Flaminia, Ernesto's best beloved, "that admirable stylist Arleen Augér [revelled] in her tremendous bravura aria 'Ragion nell'arma' ... and in the tender 'Se la mia stella'".

And as Lisetta, the below-stairs mezzo wooed by Cecco, Frederica von Stade dispatched her helter-skelter comic numbers with apparently effortless virtuosity.

In this particular opera, the contribution made by Haydn's orchestra was a more important ingredient than usual: he had responded to its extraterrestrial theme with a sopranino recorder, some unusual violin harmonics and imaginative echo effects.

Its libretto, he wrote, was one of several "strained and overly sophisticated eighteenth-century comedies about human folly", and it was telling that Haydn had apparently struggled to work up much enthusiasm for composing it.

The runners-up for top honours were Anthony Rolfe Johnson, "modestly effective" in the stock opera buffa role of the comical servant, and Edith Mathis as one of Mr Good-faith's daughters.

That said, the operas provided "superb opportunities for first-class singers", and Philips had been able to recruit a company of artists sufficiently accomplished to meet Haydn's challenges.