Palace in west Hungary in the village now called Fertőd. From 1766 to 1790 it was the summer residence of Haydn's employer Prince Nikolaus Esterházy ‘the Magnificent’. The Süttör hunting lodge, designed by A.E. Martinelli, was erected at the southern end of the Neusiedler (Fertő) Lake in 1721 and served as the home of the younger brother Prince Nikolaus, who had his own theatre and marionette group, while Prince Paul Anton resided in Eisenstadt (Kismarton), the centre of the Esterházy domain. On his brother's death (1762) Nikolaus became head of the family and the wealthiest Hungarian nobleman, and decided to turn the Süttör lodge into a splendid palace like Versailles, rivalling Schönbrunn. The central building was erected between 1762 and 1766 (fig.1); it may have been designed partly by Melchior Hefele, and the design was revised by the prince himself. The frescoes and decorations were partly painted by J.B. Grundmann, Haydn's first portraitist. The opera house, opened in 1768 with Haydn's Lo speziale, was destroyed by fire in 1779 but was rebuilt in time for the first performance of Haydn's La fedeltŕ premiata early in 1781. From 1768 a special music house provided a rehearsal room and modest apartments for musicians, singers and actors; Haydn had a four-room suite. A marionette theatre, erected in 1772 and decorated in grotto style, was opened in 1773, on the occasion of the Empress Maria Theresa's only visit to Eszterháza. The first international event of the establishment, the magnificent festival on the occasion of the visit of the French Prince Rohan in 1772, was celebrated in György Bessenyei’s long poem Eszterházi vigasságok. More buildings were erected and the huge park was laid out; the residence was nearly finished when another Hungarian poet, Márton Dallos, gave a detailed description of it in 1781. In 1784 the Beschreibung, written under the supervision of Prince Nikolaus and well illustrated with ground plans and engravings, described the whole complex, including the rebuilt opera house (fig.2), the picture gallery and the library. (The famous gouache painting of the Munich Theatermuseum, supposed to represent an Eszterháza performance of L'incontro improvviso with Haydn at the harpsichord in the orchestra, is probably not authentic.)
Music, composed and directed by Haydn, was only one of the attractions at Eszterháza: during the mid-1770s there were notable dramatic productions by Carl Wahr's group (1772–4) and the Diwald company, well known for their performances of Shakespeare and Schiller and Pauersbach's marionette group (which also performed at the Schönbrunn Schlosstheater) was equally celebrated. From 1776 the number of opera performances under Haydn steadily increased and from about 1780, when the prince was at Eszterháza from early February to late November or December, there was a regular operatic season with a modern repertory and unique in that it was maintained by a private establishment. There were 67 premičres and 1038 opera performances between 1780 and 1790. Librettos were printed, the house librettist being Nunziato Porta (from 1781), and the stage designer was the gifted Pietro Travaglia (from 1777). The prince planned the repertory; he had paid correspondents in Italian opera centres (Count Durazzo in Venice, the composer Pichl in Milan, etc.) who sent him the scores of new successes. The most frequently performed composers apart from Haydn were Cimarosa (13 operas), Anfossi (ten), Paisiello (eight) and Sarti (seven); a Mozart performance, of Le nozze di Figaro, was planned in 1790. The orchestra was fairly small (maximum 24) and included such distinguished musicians as Tomasini, Andreas Lidl and Anton Kraft. Well-trained singers, mainly Italian, were engaged for short terms, because they suffered severely from the damp of the nearby marsh and the winter north wind (the women included Jermoli, Ripamonti, Maria and Mathilde Bologna, Barbara and Palmira Sassi and Valdesturla, and from 1779 Luigia Polzelli, said to be a close friend of Haydn; the men included Karl Frieberth, Dichtler, Specht, Bianchi, Braghetti, Gherardi, Jermoli, Moratti, Morelli, Negri, Nencini and Andrea Totti).
After Nikolaus's death the magnificence vanished at once; his successor Prince Anton held one more ceremony in the palace (August 1791; an engraving, reproduced here, shows Gypsy musicians playing in the yard), and then the gallery and other attractions were removed to Eisenstadt and the opera house became a storage place.
In 1959 a Haydn summer festival took place in the partly renewed palace to mark the 150th anniversary of Haydn's death.
For bibliography see Esterházy.
LÁSZLÓ SOMFAI