Bastien und Bastienne with the exception of the reconciliation scene. The opening theme of Mozart's overture resembles that of the first movement of Beethoven's Symphony no. 3, "Eroica" (in a different key). It is unlikely that Beethoven was familiar with Mozart's youthful opera. In any case, opening a movement with an arpeggio of the tonic chord was an extremely common occurrence in the Classical period. The resemblance is likely coincidental. Although he was very young, Mozart already had excellent vocal writing skills and a knack for parody and whimsy which would reach full flower in his later works. "" is possibly the easiest
Comic opera was commissioned by the Bolshoi theatre and premiered on March 23, 2005. The staging of the opera was accompanied by juicy scandal; however it was an enormous success. In the United States, Victor Herbert (1859–1924) was one of the first to pick up the family-friendly style of light opera that Gilbert and Sullivan had made popular, although his music was also influenced by the European operetta composers. His earliest pieces, starting with "Prince Ananias" in 1894, were styled "comic operas," but his later works were described as "musical extravaganza", "musical comedy", "musical play", "musical farce", and even "opera comique." His