Bastien und Bastienne Bastien und Bastienne ' was one of Mozart's earliest operas, written in 1768 when he was only twelve years old. It was allegedly commissioned by Viennese physician and 'magnetist' Dr. Franz Mesmer (who himself would later be parodied in "Così fan tutte") as a satire of the 'pastoral' genre then prevalent, and specifically as a parody of the opera "Le devin du village" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The German libretto is by Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern, and Johann Andreas Schachtner, based on ' by Justine Favart and Harny de Guerville. After its supposed premiere in Mesmer's garden theater (that is only corroborated
Zar und Zimmermann Zar und Zimmermann Zar und Zimmermann ("Tsar and Carpenter") is a comic opera in three acts, music by Albert Lortzing, libretto by the composer after Georg Christian Römer's "Der Bürgermeister von Saardam, oder Die zwei Peter", itself based on the French play "Le Bourgmestre de Saardam, ou Les deux Pierre" by Anne-Honoré-Joseph Duveyrier de Mélésville, Jean-Toussaint Merle, and Eugène Centiran de Boirie. Ultimately, it goes back to the historical Grand Embassy of Peter the Great. Gaetano Donizetti had set the same story in his 1827 opera "Il borgomastro di Saardam". The opera was first performed at the Stadttheater in Leipzig,