Joseph Haydn is not primarily remembered as a composer of opera, yet the genre occupied a great deal of his time.
During the 1770s and 1780s, Haydn ran an opera troupe on behalf of his employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, which put on up to 150 performances per year.
During the 1970s, after the release of his complete Haydn symphony cycle, Hungarian-American conductor Antal Doráti recorded eight of Haydn's operas for Philips Records, with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.
The selected works were Armida, La fedeltà premiata, L'incontro improvviso, L'infedeltà delusa, L'isola disabitata, Il mondo della luna, Orlando paladino and La vera costanza.
These were initially released on LP format, then subsequently on CD in 1993.