For his first Singspiel in 1768 the twelve-year-old Mozart chose a subject that was both popular and provocative. Bastien und Bastienne is based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s one-act pastoral Le devin du village, which he used as a vehicle for his philosophical ideas when he composed it in 1752, at the height of the Querelle des Bouffons controversy about French and Italian operatic styles. Mozart’s nuanced musical portrayal of the three protagonists already hints at the skills he would go on to develop as a psychologically aware opera composer.