ABSTRACT
According to one of his more heart-rending letters to Michael Puchberg, Mozart expected to receive 200 ducats from the directorate of the Viennese court theatres for composing Cosi fan tutte. Mozart's statement to Puchberg has long been accepted at face value, because the theatrical financial records for the season in which Cosi fan tutte had its premiere have been thought to be lost. In light of the exceptional fees paid to Paisiello and Salieri, it is quite possible that Mozart had likewise been promised a double fee for Cost fan tutte, although no evidence of such a promise is known to survive. Apart from hints in Mozart's letters and in the autobiography of the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, little is known about how operas were commissioned or otherwise selected for performance during Joseph's reign. Salieri's payment for composing La cifra and revising II pastor fido is recorded in the same source as Mozart's fee for Cost fan tutt.
