I'm a singer, and have recently been learning several arias from Mozart's 'The Barber of Seville' and 'The Marriage of Figaro.' This had me thinking: After Mozart composed these operas, what was their performance history? Would he have to pitch the opera to an operatic production company, for instance? And how would a play like 'The Marriage of Figaro' make its way around Europe in this period? Were there travelling operatic groups, for instance, or would copies of the score be sent by mail to other conductors and composers?
Many thanks!
The music of Mozart and other contemporaries coincided with the rise of German publishers specializing in music publishing with type set. Mozart would usually have his works published for performance and then after personally conducting the premiers of many show, he would send them to performance companies elsewhere (such as Prague).