Another circumstance also interfered with the completion of Mozart's opera. It was proposed in honour of the distinguished visitors to perform two of Gluck's operas, viz.: "Iphigenia" in a German adaptation, and "Alceste" in Italian, "in order," as a contemporary announcement puts it, "to show what we Germans are able to accomplish."[26] Certainly the choice was well made with this object in view, although it was said in Vienna, as Mozart wrote to his father (August 29,1781), that it had been difficult to persuade the Emperor into it, for he was at heart as little partial to Gluck as to Gluck's favourite singer, Bernasconi.[27] The projected performance of these operas disturbed all Mozart's calculations. The applause which had been bestowed on his "Idomeneo" by capable and influential judges, and the readiness of the singers to appear in it, had raised the hope of producing it on this occasion in a German adaptation, which would have involved alterations in the composition; but a third grand opera would have been too much, and it could not have been studied together with Gluck's. Even the comic opera had to be temporarily laid aside until Gluck's two operas were ready--"and there is plenty of study to be got through still," he wrote to his father (October 6, 1781). He was at work at it again in the middle of November; but the original intention of having it completed by the arrival of the Grand Duke was no longer feasible. On November 21 "that grand animal, the Grand Duke," arrived under the name of Count von Narden, and on the 25th a brilliant festival was given at Schonbrunn. "Tomorrow 'Alceste' is given at Schonbrunn,"[28] writes Mozart, {ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN.} (197) sorrowfully (November 24, 1781). "I have been looking up Russian popular songs, in order to play variations on them." Shortly before the arrival of the Grand Duke, the Duke of Würtemberg, with his consort, the Princess Elizabeth, intended bride of the Archduke Franz, and her brother, Prince Ferdinand, had entered Vienna. "The Duke is a charming man, and the Duchess and Princess also; but the Prince is an octogenarian stick, and a real blockhead," was Mozart's concise description (November 17, 1781); but the arrival of the trio opened a favourable prospect for him. The Princess, who had come to have the finishing touches put to her education in Vienna, required a teacher of music, and this position, which, besides making a welcome addition to his income, would bring him into contact with very influential persons, Mozart hoped to obtain. His chief supporter was the Emperor's youngest brother, the Archduke Maximilian, at that time Coadjutor of the Elector of Cologne. The Archduke was musical, and had an excellent band of wind instruments in his pay;[29] he had a favourable remembrance of Mozart from his visit to Salzburg in 1775, and proved a very warm patron. Mozart wrote to his father (November 1781):--