The elector Maximilian III. was a kindly, good-hearted gentleman, and very fond of music himself. He had long before manifested a great deal of interest in Mozart, and knew as well as anybody what success the young composer had met with in the world. Mozart saw himself loved and honored, and the excellence of the opera in Munich was a great incentive to induce him to do his very best in the performance of the task now given him. In it we find early traces of those living streams of pleasant feelings which flowed from Mozart’s heart. The words of the opera had been frequently set to music; but the people said that no more beautiful music had ever been heard than that of Mozart’s opera, in which all the arias, without exception, were beautiful. “Thank God,” he wrote on the 14th of January, “my opera was put upon the stage yesterday, and came off so well that I find it impossible to describe the bustle to mamma. In the first place, the theater was so very crowded that a great many people had to go back home. Every aria was followed by a frightful hubbub and cries of _viva maestro!_ Her highness the electoress and the electoress dowager, who were just opposite me, saluted me with a _bravo!_ When the opera was out, there was nothing to be heard but the clapping of hands and cries of _bravo!_ interrupted by pauses of silence, only to be taken up again, and again. After this, I went with papa into a room, through which the elector had to go, where I kissed the hands of his highness, of the electoress and of the nobility, all of whom were very gracious to me. Early this morning his grace, the prince-bishop of Chiemsee, sent a special messenger here to congratulate me on the fact that the opera had proved so unprecedently successful.” The prince-bishop, who had been a canon of the cathedral in Salzburg, and loved Mozart very much, had, it is very likely, procured for him the commission from Munich, and hence his enhanced interest in Mozart, and the peculiar satisfaction he felt in his great success. Even the archbishop himself was an unwilling witness of the triumph of his _concertmeister_, to whom he showed so little respect. He had not, indeed, seen the opera himself, because it was not performed during his visit, which was a mere visit on business connected with his office; but, as the father writes, he could not help hearing Mozart’s praise, and accepting many solemn congratulations on having secured the services of so great a genius, from all the elector’s household and from the nobility. This confused him so much that he could answer only with a nod of the head and a shrug of the shoulders. We shall soon see that all this did not redound to Mozart’s welfare and advantage.