Gottfried van Swieten and income following the earlier completion of their Grand Tour of Europe. According to Mozart's father Leopold, Van Swieten was involved in the early planning of Wolfgang's ill-fated opera "La Finta Semplice" (the opera was later blocked by intrigues, and could be performed only in Salzburg). In 1781, shortly after Mozart had moved to Vienna, van Swieten met him again: at the salon of Countess Thun, Mozart played extracts from his recent opera Idomeneo, with van Swieten and other important officials in the audience; this event helped instigate Mozart's commission for the opera "The Abduction from the Seraglio", his first
Christiane Eda-Pierre Chicago, and New York. She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1980 as Konstanze, and went on to sing other roles there: Antonia in "Les contes d'Hoffmann" and Gilda in "Rigoletto". She became a teacher at the Paris Conservatory in 1977, while continuing her career in opera and in concert. The possessor of a beautiful, rich and agile voice, which enabled her to succeed in a wide variety of roles, Eda-Pierre can be heard on several recordings, her three most famous being on the Philips label, as Konstanze in "Abduction from the Seraglio" and Teresa in "Benvenuto Cellini", both under