He again met his Mannheim artists, singers as well as the orchestra--all but Aloysia, who had been called a short time previously, to the national operatic theatre in Vienna--in Munich, and he was therefore well prepared to go to work. And he was anxious to do so, for it was a long time since he had an opportunity to show his full powers on the stage. He felt happy, nay, delighted, since his arrival. He lived in the _Burggasse_. A bronze tablet bearing his portrait has since been placed on the house in which he lived. The elector greeted him most graciously, and when Mozart gave expression to the peculiar ardor he felt, he tapped him on the shoulder and said: “I have no doubt whatever; everything will be well.” Every one was delighted and astonished at the rehearsal of the first act. Much had been expected of him, but the performance surpassed all expectation. Frau Cannabich, who had been obliged to remain at home with her sick daughter, Rose, embraced him, so overjoyed was she at his success; and the musicians went home almost crazed with delight. The hautboyist Ramm, with whom Beethoven played his quintet op. 16, in 1804, told him on his word as a true son of the fatherland, that no music had ever made such an impression on him--referring to the double choruses during Idomeneus’s shipwreck--and what joy would it bring to his father when he heard of it! The latter cautioned him from home to take care of himself. He knew his son. And, indeed, Wolfgang had a slight attack of illness at this time. He writes ingenuously enough: “A man gets easily over-heated when honor or fame is at stake.” But he was soon well again, and able to write: “A person is indeed glad when he is at last done with so great and so toilsome a piece of work; and I am almost done with it; for, all that is wanting now is two arias, the final chorus, the overture, the ballet--and _adieu partie_.” The father had reminded him not to forget to make his music popular. It was the “popular” in music that tickled the long-eared. Wolfgang replied that there was music in his opera for all kinds of people, the long-eared excepted. And indeed the work contained ballet-interludes, and besides the most popular of all kinds of music, the dance. Mozart’s genius permitted him, as we have seen, to make many a concession to the peculiarities of the singers, spite of the gravity of the subject. But where this same gravity was paramount, as in the quartet of the third act, he had trouble enough. The oftener he put it on the stage, the greater was the effect it produced on himself, and it was liked by all, even when only played on the piano. Raaff alone found it too long, and not easy enough to sing.