and so euphonious, that the terzet may well claim a place with more important works. The concluding operatic piece is a vaudeville. Each solo voice delivers a verse of the song, passing with characteristic modifications into the principal motif, which takes the form of a chorus. The bass voice comes last; the actor Buf gives his decision for the first buffo. This was Lange, who himself used to say that he could only make a singer at need (Selbtsbiographie, p. 126), and who thus ironically parodied his own words. Mozart also wrote an overture to the piece, in which, less bound by the triviality of the text, he could move more {DER SCHAUSPIELDIRECTOR, 1786.} (49) freely. It consists of a single movement in quick time. The first bars--[See Page Image] fall at once into the tone of the whole, and form in their contrasting elements the motifs which are afterwards intersected in the working-out. The two subsequent better-sustained melodies possess in their easy imitative movement, the charm of a lively, excited conversation, the transition passage forming a piquant contrast; in short, the whole overture resembles a comedy with the different characters and intrigues crossing each other, until at last all ends well. The whole festival was twice repeated at the Kamthnerthortheater soon after the performance at Schönbrunn.[13] Several later attempts were made to give the piece more action and more music, so as to preserve Mozart's work on the stage. When Goethe undertook the management of the court theatre at Weimar in 1791, numerous Italian and French operas were arranged to German words by the indefatigable concertmeister Kranz and the industrious theatrical poet, Vulpius.[14] Goethe, being in Rome in the summer of 1787, was extremely amused by the performance of an intermezzo, "L' Impresario in angustie,"[15] which Cimarosa had composed in the Carnival of the previous year (at the same time as Mozart's "Schauspieldirector") for the Teatro Nuovo at Naples.[16] He at once had it arranged as a comic opera, with the title of "Theatralische Abenteuer," and the whole of the music to Mozart's "Schauspieldirector" introduced.[17] {MOZART AS AN OPERA COMPOSER.} (50) It was performed at Weimar on October 24,1791, with great success, and afterwards repeated with alterations[18] on other stages during a considerable time.