Editing Antonio Salieri (section)

===Middle Viennese period and Parisian operas (1780–1788)===
Upon his return at imperial behest to Vienna in 1780, Salieri wrote one German Singspiel, ''[[Der Rauchfangkehrer]]'' (''The Chimney Sweep''), which premiered in 1781. Salieri's ''Chimney Sweep'' and Mozart's work for the same company in 1782, ''[[Die Entführung aus dem Serail]]'' (''The Abduction from the Seraglio''), were the only two major successes to emerge from the German Singspiel experiment, and only Mozart's opera survived on the stage beyond the close of the 18th century. In 1783 the Italian opera company was revived with singers partly chosen and vetted by Salieri during his Italian tour;{{sfn|Rice|1998|p=256}} the new season opened with a slightly re-worked version of Salieri's recent success ''La Scuola de' gelosi''. Salieri then returned to his rounds of rehearsing, composition, and teaching. However, his time at home in Vienna quickly ended when an opportunity to write an opera for Paris arose, again through the patronage of Gluck. Salieri traveled abroad to fulfill an important commission.

The opera ''[[Les Danaïdes]]'' (''The Danaids'') is a five-act [[tragédie lyrique]]. The plot was based on an ancient Greek legend that had been the basis for the first play in a trilogy by [[Aeschylus]], entitled ''[[The Suppliants (Aeschylus)|The Suppliants]]''. The original commission that reached Salieri in 1783–84 was to assist Gluck in finishing a work for Paris that had been all but completed; in reality, Gluck had failed to notate any of the scores for the new opera and gave the entire project over to his young friend. Gluck feared that the Parisian critics would denounce the opera by a young composer known mostly for comic pieces and so the opera was originally billed in the press as being a new work by Gluck with some assistance from Salieri, then shortly before the premiere of the opera the Parisian press reported that the work was to be partly by Gluck and partly by Salieri, and finally, after popular and critical success on stage, the opera was acknowledged in a letter to the public by Gluck as being wholly by the young Salieri. ''Les Danaïdes'' was received with great acclaim and its popularity with audiences and critics alike produced several further requests for new works for Paris audiences by Salieri. ''Les Danaïdes'' followed in the tradition of reform that Gluck had begun in the 1760s and that Salieri had emulated in his earlier opera ''Armida''. Salieri's first [[French opera]] contained scenes of great solemnity and festivity, but overshadowing it all was darkness and revenge. The opera depicted politically motivated murder, filial duty and love in conflict, tyrannicide, and finally eternal damnation. The opera, with its dark overture, lavish choral writing, many ballet scenes, and electrifying finale depicting a glimpse of hellish torture, kept the opera on the stage in Paris for over forty years. A young [[Hector Berlioz]] recorded the deep impression this work made on him in his ''Mémoires''.{{sfn|Berlioz|2002|p=22}}

Upon returning to Vienna following his success in Paris, Salieri met and befriended [[Lorenzo Da Ponte]] and had his first professional encounters with [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]. Da Ponte wrote his first opera libretto for Salieri, ''[[Il ricco d'un giorno]]'' (''A Rich Man for a Day'') in 1784, which was not a success. Salieri next turned to [[Giambattista Casti]] as a librettist; a more successful set of collaborations flowed from this pairing. In the meantime, Da Ponte began working with Mozart on ''Le Nozze di Figaro'' (''[[The Marriage of Figaro]]''). In 1785 Salieri produced one of his greatest works with the text by Casti, ''[[La grotta di Trofonio]]'' (''The Cave of Trophonius''), the first {{lang|it|opera buffa}} published in full score by [[Artaria]]. Shortly after this success, Joseph II had Mozart and Salieri each contribute a one-act opera and/or Singspiel for production at a banquet in 1786. Salieri collaborated with Casti to produce a parody of the relationship between poet and composer in ''[[Prima la musica e poi le parole]]'' (First the music and then the words). This short work also highlighted the typical backstage antics of two high-flown sopranos. Salieri then returned to Paris for the premiere of his tragédie Lyrique ''[[Les Horaces]]'' (''The Horatii''), which proved a failure, which was more than made up for with his next Parisian opera ''[[Tarare (opera)|Tarare]]'', with a libretto by [[Pierre Beaumarchais|Beaumarchais]]. This was intended to be the ''{{Lang|la|[[nec plus ultra]]}}'' of reform opera, a completely new synthesis of poetry and music that was an 18th-century anticipation of the ideals of [[Richard Wagner]]. Salieri also created a sacred cantata ''Le Judgment dernier'' (''The Last Judgement''). The success of his opera ''Tarare'' was such that it was soon translated into Italian at Joseph II's behest by Lorenzo Da Ponte as ''[[Axur, re d'Ormus]]'' (''Axur, King of Hormuz'') and staged at the royal wedding of [[Franz II]] in 1788.