Munich January 29, 1781. The success of
this work was so decided that it determined Mozart's career as an
operatic composer. A few months later he quarreled with the
archbishop, and the unpleasant connection came to an end. His second
opera, "_Die Entfuehrung aus dem Serail_" ("The Elopement from the
Seraglio"), was produced at Vienna July 16, 1782. This was his first
opera in German. In August of this year he was married to Constance
Weber, younger sister of her who had first enchanted him. The marriage
was congenial in many ways, but as the wife was incapable in money
matters and administration, and Mozart himself careless as a business
man, and in receipt of a small and irregular income, they soon found
themselves in a sea of little troubles, from which the struggling
artist was nevermore free. Only at the last moment, when indeed his
life was all but extinct, did the clouds disappear, and a prospect
open before him, which if he had lived to enjoy it, would have placed
his remaining days in easy circumstances. In 1785 the father visited
his son in Vienna, and upon one of the first days of his stay, there
was a little dinner party at Mozart's house, with Haydn and the two
Barons Todi. In his letter home, Leopold Mozart says that Haydn said
to him: "I declare to you, before God, as a man of honor, that your
son is the greatest composer that I know, either personally or by
reputation; he has taste, and beyond that the most consummate
knowledge of composition." In return for this compliment Mozart
dedicated to Haydn six string quartettes, with a laudatory preface, in
which he says that it was "but his due, for from Haydn I first learned
to compose a quartette." Mozart was an enthusiastic Freemason, and
through his influence his father, who had always previously opposed
the order, became a member, during this visit at Vienna. Soon
afterward the father died. For the lodge Mozart wrote much music, both
of a liturgical character and for concerts, and special
entertainments, and in the "Magic Flute" there are many reminiscences
of the order.

A year later he made the acquaintance of the celebrated librettist,
Lorenzo da Ponte, who proposed to adapt Beaumarchais' comedy, "The
Marriage of Figaro," which after some difficulty in obtaining the
consent of the emperor, on account of the objectionable character of
the story, was done, and the work produced at Vienna, May 1, 1786. The
theater was crowded, and many airs were repeated