THE unexampled success of the "Entführung," which brought fame to the composer and pecuniary gain to the theatrical management, justified Mozart in his expectation that the Emperor, having called German opera into existence,[1] would commission him to further its prosperous career. He was indeed offered an opera, but the libretto, ''Welches ist die beste Nation?" was such miserable trash, that Mozart would not waste his music on it. Umlauf composed it, but it was hissed off the stage; and Mozart wrote to his father (December 21, 1782) that he did not know whether the poet or the composer were most deserving of the condemnation the work received. In fact, the impulse given to German opera seemed only too likely to die away without lasting result. Stephanie the younger[2] contrived by his intrigues to obtain the dismissal of Müller as conductor of the opera, and the appointment of a committee, whose jealousies and party feelings he turned so skilfully to account that they were all speedily satisfied to leave the actual power in his hands. The incessant disagreements which were the consequence, the hostility between composers, actors, and musicians, disgusted Kienmayer and Rosenberg, the managers of the opera, and the Emperor himself. Nor were the repeated experiments made with the works of mediocre {THE OPERA IN VIENNA.} (43) composers (which so enraged Mozart that he purposed writing a critique on them with examples) likely to find favour with the Emperor. Add to this that his immediate musical surroundings, Salieri at the head of them, were at least passively opposed to German opera, and it will not be thought surprising that the Emperor Joseph angrily renounced German opera, and followed his own taste in the reinstalment of the Italian. Chance brought this determination to a point. A French company of considerable merit, both in opera and the drama, was performing at the Kamthnerthortheater, and was patronised by the Emperor.[3] He sent for the performers to Schönbrunn in the summer of 1782, and entertained them in the castle during their stay. They were dissatisfied with the hospitality they there received, and one of the actors had the ill-breeding, during a meal at which the Emperor happened to come in, to offer him a glass of wine, with the request that he would try it, and say whether such wretched Burgundy was good enough for them to drink. The Emperor drank the wine, and answered that it was good enough for him, but he had no doubt they would find better wine in France.[4]