Editing Antonio Salieri (section)

===Late Viennese operas (1788–1804)===
In 1788 Salieri returned to Vienna, where he remained for the rest of his life. In that year he became Kapellmeister of the Imperial Chapel upon the death of [[Giuseppe Bonno]]; as Kapellmeister he conducted the music and musical school connected with the chapel until shortly before his death, being officially retired from the post in 1824.

His Italian adaptation of ''Tarare'', ''Axur'' proved to be his greatest international success. ''Axur'' was widely produced throughout Europe and it even reached South America with the exiled royal house of Portugal in 1824. ''Axur'' and his other new compositions completed by 1792 marked the height of Salieri's popularity and his influence. Just as his apogee of fame was being reached abroad, his influence in Vienna began to diminish with the death of Joseph II in 1790. Joseph's death deprived Salieri of his greatest patron and protector. During this period of imperial change in Vienna and revolutionary ferment in France, Salieri composed two additional extremely innovative musical dramas to libretti by Giovanni Casti. Due, however, to their satiric and overtly liberal political inclinations, both operas were seen as unsuitable for public performance in the politically reactive cultures of [[Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor|Leopold II]] and later [[Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor|Francis II]]. This resulted in two of his most original operas being consigned to his desk drawer, namely ''Cublai, gran kan de' Tartari'' (''Kublai Grand Kahn of Tartary'') a satire on the autocracy and court intrigues at the court of the Russian [[Tsarina]], [[Catherine the Great]], and ''Catilina'', a semi-comic/semi-tragic account of the [[Lucius Sergius Catilina|Catiline]] conspiracy that attempted to overthrow the Roman republic during the consulship of [[Cicero]]. These operas were composed in 1787 and 1792 respectively. Two other operas of little success and long-term importance were composed in 1789, and one great popular success ''[[La cifra]]'' (''The Cipher'').

[[File:Palmira, regina di Persia.jpg|thumb|300px|The beginning of Salieri's opera ''Palmira, regina di Persia'']]
As Salieri's political position became insecure he retired as director of the Italian opera in 1792. He continued to write new operas per imperial contract until 1804 when he voluntarily withdrew from the stage. Of his late works for the stage only two works gained wide popular esteem during his life, ''[[Palmira, regina di Persia]]'' (''Palmira, Queen of Persia'') (1795) and ''{{Interlanguage link|Cesare in Farmacusa|de}}'' (Caesar on [[Farmakonisi|Pharmacusa]]), both drawing on the heroic and exotic success established with ''Axur''. His late opera based on [[William Shakespeare]]'s ''[[The Merry Wives of Windsor]]'', ''[[Falstaff (Salieri)|Falstaff ossia Le tre burle]]'' (Falstaff, or the three tricks) (1799) has found a wider audience in modern times than its original reception promised. His last opera was a German-language Singspiel ''{{Interlanguage link|Die Neger|de|Die Neger (Oper)}}'' (''The Negroes''), a [[melodrama]] set in [[colonial Virginia]] with a text by [[Georg Friedrich Treitschke]] (the author of the libretto for Beethoven's ''[[Fidelio]]''); it was performed in 1804 and was a complete failure.