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
Italian opera well as including self-referential ideas. Goldoni and Galuppi's most famous work together is probably "Il filosofo di campagna" (1754). The collaboration between Goldoni and another famous composer Niccolò Piccinni produced another new genre: opera semiseria. This had two "buffo" characters, two nobles and two "in between" characters. The one-act farsa had a significant influence on the development of comic opera. This was a type of musical drama initially considered as a condensed version of a longer comic opera, but over time it became a genre in its own right. It was characterised by: vocal virtuosity; a more refined use of