THE LIBRETTO.
“I sing this evening the Count in your Figaro, Master Mozart!” said Bassi.
“Very well!” replied Mozart. “What say your Prague people to the opera?”
“Come to-night to the theatre, and you shall hear for yourself! This is the twelfth representation in sixteen days; and this evening it is performed at the wish of Duke Antony of Saxony.”
“Ho, ho! and what says Strobach?”
“He and the whole orchestra say every night after the performance, that they would be glad to begin it over again, though it is a difficult piece.”
Mozart rubbed his hands with pleasure, and said to his wife—
“You remember, I told you, the excellent people of Prague would drive out of my head the vexation I endured at Vienna! And I will write them an opera, such as one does not hear every day! I have a capital libretto, Bassi, a bold, wild thing, full of spirit and fire, which Da Ponte composed for me. He says he would have done it for no one else; for none else would have had the courage for it. It was just the thing for me! The music has long run in my head; only I knew not to what I should set it, for no other poem would suit! In Idomeneo and Figaro you find sounds—but not exactly of the right sort; in short—it was with me, as when the spring should and would come—but cannot; on bush and tree hang myriads of buds, but they are closed; then comes the tempest, and the thunder cries, ‘burst forth!’ and the warm rain streams down, and leaf and blossom burst into sudden and bright luxuriance! The deuce take me, if it was not so in my mind, when Da Ponte brought me the libretto! You shall take the principal part; and the deuce take you!”
Bassi wanted to know more of the opera; but Mozart assumed an air of mystery, and laughing, put him off, exhorting the impatient to patience.