About the work
Commedia per musica in three acts by Antonio Salieri to a libretto by Giovanni Gastone Boccherini, first performed on 29 January 1772 at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
Plot
At the Venice fair, the paths of numerous characters from different walks of life cross, among them the young Falsirena and the supposed Duke Ostrogoto – a turbulent tangle of disguises, courtships and social pretension typical of the Venetian marketplace comedy.
Cultural significance
The 1773 Theateralmanach praised music that was 'excellently composed' and delighted audiences; the opera was performed across Europe in numerous translations into the 1820s. In 1773 the seventeen-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, then in Vienna, wrote a set of piano variations on a theme from the opera (K. 180) – testimony to its popularity in the 1770s. Today the work is rarely staged.