Carlo Goldoni

Joseph II, who had succeeded his mother on the throne, expressed a desire to hear in Vienna an opera of the twelve-year-old boy's composition and suggested such a work to the lessee of the court theatre, Giuseppe Afflioso.

The result was La Finta Semplice, its libretto based on a Goldoni farce, and it was arranged that the composer should lead it from the harpsichord.

Nothing came of the scheme, however, presumably because of intrigues.

The youth was partly consoled for this check by a noted physician, the celebrated Dr. Anton Mesmer, an early practitioner of mesmerism, at whose suburban home the one-act German Singspiel, Bastien und Bastienne, based on a parody of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's famous pastoral, La Davin du Velige, was performed.