Franz Mesmer summers he lived on a splendid estate and became a patron of the arts. In 1768, when court intrigue prevented the performance of "La finta semplice" (K. 51), for which the 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, though Mozart's biographer Nissen found no proof that this performance actually took place. Mozart later immortalized his former patron by including a comedic reference to Mesmer in his opera "Così fan tutte". In 1774, Mesmer produced an "artificial
The Scarf (opera) The Scarf (opera) The Scarf is a chamber opera in one act by composer Lee Hoiby. The work uses an English libretto by Harry Duncan that is based on the short story "The Witch" by Anton Chekhov. Composed in 1955, the opera premiered on June 20, 1958 at the very first Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy in a production by Gian Carlo Menotti and conducted by Reinhard Peters. The cast included Patricia Neway as Miriam, John McCollum as Reuel, and Richard Cross as the Postman. The work received its American premiere the following year at the New York