Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön Williams suggest that the opening notes of "Dies Bildnis" spill over into other numbers of "The Magic Flute": "The opening phrase of 'Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön' turns up at a half-dozen unexpected places in the second finale. These and similar melodic remembrances are not to be regarded as leitmotifs in the Wagnerian sense but as partly unconscious echoes of musical ideas that were in Mozart's mind throughout the composition of the opera." One such echo has been repeatedly noted: the phrase to which Pamina sings the words "" ("My Tamino! Oh what happiness!") when she and Tamino are reunited
Mozart and smallpox both children's illness to contend with, the Mozarts spent a total of four months away from Vienna. They eventually returned there and were received in the Imperial court on 19 January, 1768. The Empress, who had by now lost three children to smallpox, conversed with Frau Mozart about the disease. The remainder of the trip was not especially successful. Leopold apparently misinterpreted a chance remark of the Emperor as a firm invitation for Wolfgang to compose an opera; this resulted in Wolfgang writing "La finta semplice". However, the opera went unperformed in Vienna; the singers and musicians did not like