Description: This is a copy of Giovanni Battista Casti's libretto for the comic opera "Prima la musica e poi le parole". On the back of the t.p. appears a list of characters and names Antonio Salieri as the composer of the music. The one-act opera was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II. Members of the Burgtheater's Italian troupe premiered it at the Schönbrunn Palace on February 7, 1786. The library's copy is bound with the libretto of Zaccaria Valaresso's "Rutzvanscad, il giovine."

Description: This is a copy of the libretto of "Proserpine," a tragedy in five acts by Phillipe Quinault. The tragedy was set to music by Jean Baptiste Lully, superintendent chamber composer of the court of Louis XIV, and performed in the King's presence at Saint Germain-en-Laye on February, [3] 1680. The month and year of the opera premiere are indicated on the t.p., but the day of performance was left out with a blank space. The library's copy shows errors in pagination. The number of p. 25 was scribbled with ink and rendered illegible. A second p.66 should read p. 67, and the last page of the libretto, numbered 70, should be p. 68. The libretto contains an engraving of one of the stage settings by J. Le Pautre, after a design by J. Berain. The item contains a prologue and list of characters.

Description: Libretto of the comic opera "Le tonnelier" (The cooper) by Nicolas-Médard Audinot in collaboration with Antoine-François Quétant. The music of this one-act opera is a pasticcio of works by Gossec and other contemporaneous composers. Typical of the genre, the opera contains a variety of musical forms (airs, romance, vaudeville, and recitatives) and the dialogues are interspersed with additional airs, possibly using popular tunes. This copy includes (on pp. 52 and 54-56) notated melodies of airs.