( Memories of the Saxon nobleman Alexander von Kleist of the performance of Don Giovanni held on 2 September 1791 )
Never have I left an opera house so richly rewarded as today, when I saw so many people, notable in such different ways, in one place… The Emperor seemed pleased with his welcome and bowed to the spectators a few times… With a gesture a little man in a green coat, whose eye proclaims what his modest appearance would conceal, bids me attend to more attractive maters. It is Mozart, whose opera Don Juan is to be given today, whose joy it is to see for himself the transports into which his glorious harmonies put the audience’s hearts. Who in the whole house can be more proud and glad than he? Who can derive more satisfaction from his own self than he? In vain would monarchs exhaust their treasures, in vain ancestral pride its riches: these cannot buy one little spark of the feeling with which Art rewards her darlings! All men must fear Death, only the artist fears him not. He will still move future generations when the bones of kings have long since mouldered away. And secure in these convictions Mozart could stand there… Be it fanatical enthusiasm, be it genuine human feeling: enough, at that moment I would rather have been Mozart than ［the Emperor］ Leopold.
