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
David Wickham Guildhall School of Music and Drama and studied with Norman Beedie, Paul Roberts and later with Graham Johnson and Paul Hamburger. He is currently a lecturer at Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He was a member of the music staff of the Australian Opera Studio from 2003 to 2006, where he was music director for productions of "Giulio Cesare", "Don Quichotte", "Carmen", "Così fan tutte", "Rodelinda", "Manon", "Bastien und Bastienne" and "Trouble in Tahiti", as well as "Elijah" and four cabarets. At the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts he has conducted "Candide", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Malcolm Williamson's