30 10 / 2011
In 1768, when court intrigue prevented the performance of La Finta Semplice (K. 51) for which a twelve-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had composed 500 pages of music, Mesmer is said to have arranged a performance in his garden of Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne (K. 50), a one-act opera. Mozart later immortalized his former patron by including a comedic reference to Mesmer in his opera Così fan tutte.