The first successful German opera had to make use of concepts such as "Turkish fashion" and comply with Joseph II's instruction to compose a "national musical comedy". Yet Mozart's genius shaped from these requirements an outstanding opus which was the first of his many Viennese opera masterpieces. He penetrates deep into the psychology of human relationships and also reveals an element of his own biography. The fact that the principal female figure bears the name of the woman whom Mozart married shortly thereafter - Constanze - is only ostensibly a coincidence.