The wide-spread reputation of "Figaro" and "Don Giovanni" had prepared the public mind to receive Mozart's music to this opera (588 K.)[32] with the favour which it deserved;[33] but the libretto was universally pronounced to be one of the worst of its kind;[34] nor has the judgment of
posterity reversed the verdict passed upon it.[35] Two reproaches were more especially brought forward. One was the extreme improbability that neither the lovers nor Despina in their disguises would have been recognised by the two ladies, and the other the outrage committed on the moral sense by the frivolity of the test imposed, and if possible still more by the ease with which, after the unfortunate issue of the trial, the lovers all adopt a philosophic toleration towards each other. These two blemishes, however, will scarcely account for the fact that, even where attempts have been made to remove them by adaptation, the opera has never maintained its place on the stage.[36] Unquestionably, the device of the disguise is trivial, and in itself not at all entertaining, but the number of popular comedies the main point of which consists in disguise prove that the public in this respect is not hard to please. It makes no undue call on the imagination of the spectators to proceed on this supposition, although in every drama deviations more or less important must thereby be made from reality. But the imagination refuses to accept these improbabilities unless they are made to serve as external manifestations of events and actions which seem thus to be taking their regular course. If they are made the foundation for events which are manifestly false to nature, the revulsion in the spectator's mind is extended to the improbable representation itself. Treitschke hit upon the most unfortunate device for obviating the difficulty, by turning Alfonso into a magician and Despina into a sprite, and thereby not only producing glaring inconsistencies, but completely nullifying the musical characterisation. Another attempt was made by Krebel in an adaptation called "Màdchen sind Màdchen," performed in Stuttgart in 1816, where the lovers return home after a lengthened absence and
before appearing to their brides undertake and carry out the trial of their constancy; Despina undertakes the cure in her own person, and in the last finale a real notary is brought on, whom she afterwards declares to be her lover. The progress of the plot is completely changed, almost all the songs are transformed and taken from their proper connection. Herklot's alterations in "Die verhangnissvolle Wette" went still deeper.[37] The ladies are not put to the test by their own lovers, but, with the connivance of the latter, by two of their friends, whose servant Pedrillo takes part in the intrigue as the doctor and the notary. Not to mention the injury which the musical characterisation suffers thereby, the clumsiness of the test imposed is made still more apparent, and the final reconciliation becomes more unreal and revolting.