The bookseller and publisher Johann Baptist Wallishauser I (1757–1810) operated a bookshop at a prestigious location on the Kohlmarkt, and at the time of these advertisements had recently begun offering books under his own imprint (see Seemann and Wallishauser). He seems to have specialized initially in plays and singspiel libretti and he advertised regularly in the Wiener Zeitung, but this item in the Wiener Zeitung (repeated on 4 Oct) is the only one so far identified to feature the libretto of a Mozart opera.

The following year Wallishauser published an expanded list of plays and libretti for sale at the back of Die Natürliche Tochter, an anonymous play based loosely on a work of the same name by Anton Matthias Sprickmann (1749-1833). The circumstances behind the writing and printing of the play are unknown, as we have been unable to identify any performances of it (although records for the Viennese suburban theatres and private performances are very incomplete). Wallishauser’s prices range from 10kr for Ruprecht’s singspiel Das wüthende Heer and “Deutsche Arien aus der Cosa Rara”, to 24kr for Schiller’s Die Räuber and Kabale und Liebe.

Following its initial run at the Burgtheater in the theatrical season 1782–83, Die Entführung aus dem Serail was revived for two benefit performances by Aloysia Lange on 25 Jan and 1 Feb 1784 at the Kärtnerthortheater, and a production at the same theater by the Schikaneder-Kumpf company on 5 Nov 1784. From Nov 1785 to Feb 1788, the opera had more than twenty further performances by Joseph II’s revived Singspiel company, mostly at the Kärtnerthortheater, but occasionally also at the Burgtheater. Printed libretti survive both for the original production and for the revival of 1785 (no libretto is known to survive for the Lange and Schikaneder performances). From the listings, it is unclear to which libretto the Wallishauser advertisements refer, as the 1782 and 1785 printings have nearly identical titles.