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
Comic opera Comic opera Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending. Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, "opera buffa", emerged as an alternative to "opera seria". It quickly made its way to France, where it became "opéra bouffon", and eventually, in the following century, French "operetta", with Jacques Offenbach as its most accomplished practitioner. The influence of the Italian and French forms spread to other parts of Europe. Many countries developed their own genres of comic opera, incorporating the Italian