In the autumn of 1786, Bondini’s latest attempt to improve the provision of German theatre in Prague backfired badly. A company headed by Carl von Morocz opened on 10 September and the result, according to Teuber, was a ‘colossal fiasco’. The season was terminated almost immediately, though members of the failed company were permitted to stage three further performances in an attempt to defray some of their travel expenses. Following this debacle there were no German plays for three months, and Bondini’s looming financial crisis would have been obvious to all. Only on 26 December was a new company assembled. There was no repeat of the earlier failure, yet the new troupe still struggled to meet its costs in the early months of 1787.

It was against this very inauspicious background that the Bondini–Guardasoni opera company returned from its summer season in Leipzig. A successful winter programme in Prague was now imperative, and by a stroke of good fortune the newest operatic import from the Vienna stage was able to deliver a much needed success. Writing several years later, Niemetschek was well aware that the Prague production of Figaro had come at a critical moment in the fortunes of the impresario. He gives no details, but in commenting that the opera played the whole winter almost without a break, he implies that the opera received very much more than the usual Leipzig run of three performances. For Mozart this undoubted success marked the start of a highly productive relationship.