Between Die Entf�hrung aus dem Serail and the advent of the famous Da Ponte trilogy, Mozart threw himself frantically into the search for the right libretto. He wanted texts capable of taking the spectator to lands still unexplored where the drama and the psychology of the characters would be perfectly matched by his music. Hence, in the years between 1782 and 1786, he set up a veritable laboratory for dramatic music: a musical corpus of concert arias, sketches, and stylistic exercises like the canon - here brilliantly organized by Rapha�l Pichon and Pygmalion as an imaginary dramma giocoso in three scenes, each heralding in it's own way one of the summits to come: Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cos�.