The difficulties of performing Mozart’s comic opera La Finta Giardiniera are numerous: the singers must combine vocals with highly stylized movement, and the musical dialogue requires both perfect Italian and perfect pitch. Watching the opera presents far fewer demands, but the audience can expect to deal with some brain-teasers, including two characters in disguise and five others enmeshed in complex love triangles.

The libretto, by Giuseppi Petrosellini, is filled with melodrama and wit, which contrasts with a score of complex, melancholic melodies and arias. The variation, was likely an intentional decision by Mozart, who composed the opera at age 18 in a deliberate push toward the Sturm und Drang operatic style, in which the audience is supposed to be moved as well as entertained.