On the dismissal of this company, Count Rosenberg was commissioned to engage the best singers in Italy, male and female, for an opera buffa, which was all that was then thought feasible; and at the end of the carnival of 1783 the German opera company was dissolved, its best members associating themselves with the new Italian company.[5] Under these circumstances there was not much hope of success for German operatic compositions; and only three new pieces were produced in 1783, none of them with any success.[6] Mozart wrote to his father (February 5, 1783):-- {MOZART AS AN OPERA COMPOSER.} (44) Yesterday my opera was given for the seventeenth time with the usual applause, and to a crowded house. Next Friday a new opera is to be given, the music an absurdity (Galimathias) by a young pupil of Wagenseil's (Joh. Mederitsch), called "Gallus cantans in abore sedens gigirigi faciens." It will probably fail, but perhaps not so completely as its predecessor, an old opera by Gassmann," "La Notte Critica" ("The Disturbed Night"), which was scarcely brought to a third performance. Before this there was Umlaufs execrable opera, which only reached a second. It is as though, knowing that German opera is to die after Easter, they wanted to hasten its end by their own act: and they are Germans--confound them!--who do this. My own opinion is, that Italian opera will not survive long, and I shall always hold to the German; I prefer it, although it is certainly more trouble. Every nation has its opera, why should we Germans not have ours? Is not our language as fit for singing as the French and English? and more so than the Russian? Well, I am writing a German opera all _for myself_. I have chosen as subject Goldoni's comedy "Il Servitore di Due Padroni," and the first act is already translated--the translator being Baron Binder! But it is to be a secret until it is finished. Now, what do you think of that? Don't you think that I shall do myself some good by it? There can be little doubt that his father would have answered this question in the affirmative, but he would have been more sceptical as to the feasibility of the plan, and practical considerations seem to have caused its abandonment. Two German airs, preserved in draft score, belong by their handwriting to this period; one for a tenor (indicated as Carl), "Müsst ich auch durch tausend Drachen" (435 K.), and the other for a bass (Wahrmond), "Manner suchen stets zu naschen" (433 K.). No dramatic situation is recognisable, and it cannot therefore be affirmed that they were composed for this opera. The composition of a German opera for which he afterwards received a commission from Mannheim came to nothing. Klein sent him a libretto (doubtless "Rudolf von Habsburg")[7] with the request that he would set it to music, whereupon Mozart answered (March 21, 1785):[8]-- {DECLINE OF GERMAN OPERA.} (45)