Exotic opera with an elaborate score. Following their acclaimed recording of Telemann's Miriways, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, together with an excellent quartet of singers, returns to PENTATONE with Joseph Haydn's opera L'isola disabitata. Officially designated as azione teatrale, L'isola is a serious opera about love, loss and misunderstanding with a happy ending set on an exotic desert island. What makes this opera special is that Haydn chose an orchestral accompaniment for the entire work, with colorful and dramatic accompagnato recitatives. In Haydn's printed score, many of the elaborate instrumental sections were deliberately deleted because he feared that they would overwhelm the players and that some listeners might not be sophisticated enough to fully appreciate them. What makes this recording special is that these sections have all been re-inserted, using an up-to-date edition by Thomas Busse. The experienced players of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, conducted by Bernhard Forck, play this lush score with fervor and verve, while Anett Fritsch (Costanza), Sunhae Im (Silvia), Krystian Adam (Gernando), and André Morsch (Enrico) offer equally virtuosic vocal performances.