_La finta semplice_ (1768), _La finta giardiniera_ (1775), and some fragmentary works are, like Mozart’s _serious_ operas, now forgotten, but _Così fan tutte_ (1790), _Le nozze di Figaro_ (1786), and _Don Giovanni_ (1787) continue with unimpaired vitality as part of every respectable operatic repertoire. The same is true of his greatest German opera, _Die Zauberflöte_, and in a measure of _Die Entführung aus dem Serail_. Germany owes a debt of undying gratitude to the composer of these, for they accomplished the long-fought-for victory over the Italians. Hiller and his singspiel colleagues had tried it and failed; and so had Dittersdorf, the mediocre Schweitzer (allied to Wieland the poet), and numerous others. Now for the first time tables were turned and Italy submitted to the influence of Germany. Mozart had beaten them on their own ground and had the audacity to appropriate the spoil for his own country. Without Mozart we could have no _Meistersinger_, cries Kretzschmar, which means no _Freischütz_, no _Oberon_, and no _Rosenkavalier_! But only we of to-day can know these things. Joseph II, who had ‘ordered’ the _Entführung_ and whose express command was necessary to bring it upon the boards, opined on the night of the première that it was ‘too beautiful for our ears, and a powerful lot of notes, my dear Mozart.’ ‘Exactly as many as are necessary, your majesty,’ retorted the composer. It was an evening of triumph, but a triumph soon forgotten; for, after a few more attempts, the lights went down on German opera--the ‘national vaudeville’--and Salieri and his crew returned with all the wailing heroines, the strutting heroes, the gruesome ghosts, and all the paraphernalia of ‘serious opera!’ However, the people, the ‘common people,’ liked Punch and Judy better, or, at least, its equivalent. ‘Magic’ opera was the vogue, the absurder the better; and Schikaneder was their man. Some eighteenth century ‘Chantecler’ had left a surplus of bird feathers on his hands--and these suggested Papageno, the ‘hero’ of another ‘magic’ opera--‘The Magic Flute.’ The foolishness of its plot is unbelievable, but Mozart was won over. _Magic_ opera! Why--any opera would do. Now we know how he loved it! And now he used his _own_ magic, his wonderful strains, and lo, nonsense became logic, the ‘silly mixture of fairy romance and free-masonic mysticism’ was buried under a flood of sound; Schikaneder is forgotten and Mozart stands forth in all the radiance of his glory. Let the unscrupulous manager make his fortune and catch the people’s plaudits--but think of the unspeakable joy of Mozart on his deathbed as every night he follows the performances in his imagination, act by act, piece by piece, hearing with a finer sense than human ear and dreaming of generations to come that will call him master!