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 Mandarin's Son The Mandarin's Son The Mandarin's Son ("Сын мандарина" in Cyrillic; "Syn mandarina" in transliteration) is comic opera in one act by César Cui, composed in 1859. The libretto, which includes spoken dialogue, was written by Viktor Krylov. No small influence for this work came from the French composer Daniel Auber, particularly his "Le cheval de bronze", which had a similar setting, and was being performed in Saint Petersburg at the time. Cui dedicated this opera to his bride, Mal'vina Bamberg. (They had married the previous year.) The orchestration is credited to Mily Balakirev. The first performance of "The Mandarin's Son"